# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.? 



{Itap fcmM 1" , i 

! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f 



HANNAH'S VOW; 



OR, 

HALLOWED MOTHERHOOD. 



BY^-q:HE REV. 

DARWIN CHICHESTER. 




PUBLISHED BY THE ^■ 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
219 Washington Street, Boston. 

HURD AND HOUGHTON, 13 Astor Place, N. Y. 
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

The American Tract Society, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Corigress, at Washington. 



LC Control Number 




^P96 029188 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
H O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. 

Ante-natal . 7 

The Story 9 

II. 

Prayer . . . . . . . . -13 

Prayer ANSWERED IN Peace . . . . 20 

Hannah's Spirit of Beneficence . . ~ . 22 

Praise and Prophecy 24 

Mary and Elizabeth 29 

Mrs. Emily C. Judson 34 

III. 

Samuel's Childhood 40 

Samuel's Power in Prayer .... 44 

Israel's First King 49 

Samuel's Reappearance after Death . . 52 

IV. 

Elkanah -58 

His tender Regard for Hannah ... 62 

V. 

Science 66 

Inherited Muscle 67 

Inherited Form, Feature, and Complexion . 69 

Inherited Brain 72 

Moral Qualities inherited . . . .79 



iv CONTENTS, 
VI. 

Hannah's Descendants . . . . .91 
Polygamy . 98 

VII. 

Art • . . . 100 

Art and Grecian History . . . loi 

True Spirituality wanting . . . . 106 

Mental Culture no Enemy to Grace . . "113 

Hannah and the Greeks . . . . .115 

VIII. 

Instincts . . 117 

Monkery 125 

Nazaritism . 127 

Circumcision . 128 

Humble Things in Nature teach Purity . 129 
Providential Care . . . . . .131 

Christ's Sanctifying Grace . . . . 133 

IX. 

Marriage . .136 

Teachings of Romanism on Marriage . . 13.8 
Paul, the Apostle, on Marriage . . . 139 
What Christ taught of Marriage . . 141 
Christ's Love of Children .... 144 

X. 

Modern Days 149 

Millennium .152 

Increase in Knowledge . . . , -155 
Conclusion . 158 



Psalm cxxvii. 



Lo^ children are a heritage of the Lord, 
A nd the fruit of the ivomb is his reivard. 
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty ma7i, 
So are children of the y 021th. 

Happy is the ma7i that hath his quiver fill of them. 
They shall not he ashamed, 

But they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. 



HANNAH'S VOW. 



I. 

ANTE-NATAL. 

T is given to us to see beyond the 
horizon of this present life — to see 
ourselves as having once begun life 
in this world, and as destined to begin life 
again in another. To see that life here sus- 
tains infinitely important relations, not only to 
the after-death existence to which we are going, 
but to the ante-natal existence out of which we 
came. 

If we pass from a state of uprightness, our 
vision grows dim, sight fails, because of sin, 




8 HANNAH'S VOW. 

and the lower we sink, the dimmer and nar- 
rower grows our vision. iVgain, if we rise, sight 
returns, and we see light beaming forth from 
the womb-world, out of which we were born, 
as well as from the eternal world, into which 
we shall be born again. 

We have a preparation for the grand, heroic 
life of Samuel, in the longings, conflicts, and 
victories of his mother. In the case of no man 
have we so much that is suggestive in the state 
of the soul of the mother before the birth, as 
is shown in this story, brief as it is. We have 
not here a revelation such as an Aristotle or 
a Bacon would bring out. We have, in the 
place of it, such an one as God in his wisdom 
gives to those who ask of Him in faith. 

If any of you," says the Apostle James, 
" lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth 
to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it 
shall be given him; but let him ask in faith, 
nothing wavering." 



ANTE-NATAL, 



9 



THE STORY. 

Let US come, then, with believing hearts, to 
the study of the story of Hannah and her son. 
The narrative begins with the opening of the 
first book of Samuel, i Sam. i. 1-7. " Now 
there was a certain man of Rarnathaim-zo- 
phim, of Mount Ephraim, and his name was 
Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, 
the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrath- 
ite : and he had two wives, and the name of the 
one was Hannah, and the name of the other 
Peninnah : and Peninnah had children, but 
Hannah had no children. And this man w^ent 
up out of his city yearly to w^orship and to sac- 
rifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And, 
the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the 
priests of the Lord, were there. And when the 
time w^as that Elkanah offered, he gave to Pe- 
ninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her 
daughters, portions : but unto Hannah he gave 



10 HAXXAH'S VOW. 

a worthy portion : for he loved Hannah : but 
the Lord had shut up her womb. And her ad- 
versary also provoked her sore, for to make her 
fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. 
And as he did so year by year, when she went 
up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked 
her ; therefore she wept, and did not eat. Then 
said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why 
weepest thou, and why is thy heart grieved 1 
am not I better to thee than ten sons ? So 
Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, 
and after they had drunk. (Xow Eli the priest 
sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the 
Lord.) And she was in bitterness of soul, and 
prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore." 

Here we have given the conflict of the 
mother, before the child was conceived. Han- 
nah's desire for offspring was one she held in 
common with every wife in Israel, or, I might 
say, of every wife whose womanly instincts re- 
main as God made them. For, when He made 



ANTE-NATAL. II 

man, he made them male and female. And 
God blessed them, and God said unto them, 
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the 
earth.'' 

When, after the marriage of Elkanah and 
Hannah^ years passed, and no child was born, 
did she in her hopelessness introduce another 
wife to Elkanah? Such was not an unheard 
of custom among the Jews at that rude age; 
it would not have been unlike the conduct of 
Sarah, who, when despairing of giving birth to 
the promised seed, gave her servant Hagar to 
Abraham, who became his wife, and bare him 
a son. But if Hannah's was a parallel case 
with Sarah's, it was parallel, also, in that it 
brought grief, and not peace, into the house. 
For as Peninnah thought of her sons and her 
daughters, she despised the wife who had none, 
and Hannah was made to feel that she had an 
adversary in the house. But her refuge was 
not in reproaches, not in returning railing for 
railing, but in prayer. 



12 HAA^iVAH'S VOW. 

These petty annoyances in her home, and, 
because in her home, so difficult to avoid, kept 
continually before her a sense of her desola- 
tion, and increased her anguish because she 
had no children. 

This trial might have filled her soul with bit- 
terness ; it might have led her to rail at this 
wife, and to reproach her husband, and if that 
had been the result, her heart would have lost 
all love of prayer, all faith in its efficacy; but 
she yielded not to these temptations. She was 
tried as silver is tried in the refiner's fire, and 
came out purified. 



II. 



PRAYER. 

x\NNAH'S conflict lasted through long 
3^ears, and all this time she was gain- 
ing deeper views of the meaning of 
prayer. Her petitions at first may have had 
the despairing look of Rachel's, when she said 
to Jacob, Give me children, or else I die," 
looking not to the Lord, — thinking more of 
her own reproach than of the Lord's glory. 
But if, at times, her petitions put on this look, 
they gradually grew into something different. 
Slowly did the conviction grow upon her that 
the Lord had cast her down, and the Lord 
would raise her up — that the Lord had smit- 
ten, and that He would heal. 




14 HANNAH'S VOW. 

Each new trial was the occasion of a new 
victory. As each came, she was shut up more 
and more with the Lord ; till, after years of 
conflict, she was brought where she could utter 
this memorable vow, " O Lord of hosts, if 
thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine 
handmaid, and remember, and not forget thine 
handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid 
a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord 
all the days of his life, and there shall no razor 
come upon his head." His very childhood 
should be sacred. He would have been a Le- 
vite without this vow, dedicated to the service 
of the temple. Her vow implied that he was 
to be a Nazarite, which meant, " I will not keep 
him near me until he is a man, and then send 
him to the temple to be employed in its ser- 
vice, but as soon as he is weaned I will send 
him from me, and he shall be thine forever." 

Christ says, " If ye abide in me, and my 
words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, 



PR A YER. I 5 

and it shall be done unto you." The same 
mind was in her that was in Him. She had 
followed on, as the Lord had led, until she had 
found this fellowship. Divine love is a love 
that ever goes out of itself — is ever revealed in 
sacrifice. Not only is this true of the love that 
looks from the cross ; it everywhere character- 
izes the love that comes down from heaven. 
Nothing that man returns for the gifts of na- 
ture or providence, can be said to be equiva- 
lents, or compensations. He can pray, he can 
praise the Lord — he cannot pay the Lord. 
Now Hannah, in her vow, had reached the 
point of consecrating her body to Him a living 
sacrifice — the same of her body as of the fruits 
of the body. 

The sign of Nazaritism was letting the hair 
go undipped. The hair is the extreme part of 
the bodily frame, the ultimate of all. Samson 
was a Nazarite — his long hair, his abstinence 
from wine, his great ^strength, told in symbols 



1 6 HANNAH'S VOW. 

that the greatest power of truth lies in its low- 
est manifestations. 

When Hannah offered the fruit of her womb 
as a Nazarite to the Lord, she but desired 
for her child the same life she lived herself. 

Give me a son, and I wdll give him to thee, 
as long as he lives," was her vow, and she vir- 
tually said, " / consecrate my body in marriage^ 
for offspring for the Lord,^^ 

She lived in the dark days of polygamy, at a 
time when the primitive idea of marriage was 
only approached proximately, and yet by prayer 
had she obtained the true, heavenly conception 
of it. These were times of ignorance, when 
but a small part of God's revelation had been 
given. David's Psalms had not been written, 
Isaiah had not spoken, Daniel had not prophe- 
sied ; and the oracles of God, as far as given, 
were confined to one small nation. All over 
the world was the thickest moral darkness ; 
and yet at this period, when much of truth 



PRAYER. 17 

was seen only in dark symbols, like seed under 
ground, waiting for its time, this woman found, 
by prayer and consecration, the true heaven of 
marriage. 

This brief record of Hannah's struggles and 
victories reveals a light far higher than belongs 
to the church of this our age. Nearly three 
thousand years have passed, and the world in 
science, art, and literature has grown in a won- 
derful degree. Divine truth, like leaven, has 
been working through all these 3^ears, and yet 
where are the wives who have found Hannah's 
consecration of their bodies, Hannah's spirit- 
ual Nazaritism ? The story of her struggle 
and her victory is a beam of light out of the 
darkness of the distant past, which goes on by 
us into the millennium, telling us what marriage 
and offspring will be, what the church and the 
family will be. 

What a lesson have we, in the manner in 
which this wife in Israel was led ! Every plan 
2 



1 8 HANNAH'S VOW. 

was made to fail. Prayer was her only refuge. 
The Lord delayed his answer that she might 
more deeply feel that help came from Him 
alone. And more, during this long delay He 
so ordered his dealings with her, that in this 
matter, which lay the heaviest upon her heart, 
she might feel that none but God could sympa- 
thize with her. Her husband loved her and 
honored her, but he was not with her in these, 
the deepest yearnings of her soul. When it 
was to be made known to her that she was 
heard, she stood in the presence of the high- 
priest, and in bitterness of soul prayed unto 
the Lord, and wept sore ; and then came the 
record of the vow. And thus it reads : — 

" It came to pass as she continued praying 
before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. 
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart ; only her 
lips moved, but her voice was not heard, there- 
fore Eli thought she had been drunken. And 
Eli said unto her. How long, wilt thou be 



PRAYER, 19 

drunken ? put away thy wine from thee. " 
Here the high-priest, whom this stricken, mod- 
est woman so much revered, counted her among 
the vilest. Behold how she now appeared to 
man, and how to God. Her isolation was com- 
plete. The Lord, by his providential dealings, 
had brought her where her soul had found its 
closet, and had given her grace to enter, and 
to shut the door to all the world. 

" And all the world was night, 

No friend in sight ! 
Earth's darkness breathed but fear. 

But beams of light above 

Winged down their love, 
And banished all her fear." 

Hannah knew that she was heard. Eli spake 
w^ords of cheer. He who had been appointed 
to bless the people in the name of the Lord^ 
said to her, without knowing for what she had 
poured out her soul before the Lord, " Go in 
peace : and the God of Israel grant thee thy 



20 HANNAH'S VOW, 

petition that thou hast asked of Him. And she 
said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy 
sight. So the woman went her way, and did 
eat, and her countenance was no more sad. 
And they rose up in the morning early, and wor- 
shipped before the Lord, and returned, and came 
to their house to Ram ah : and^Elkanah knew 
his wife ; and the Lord remembered hen Where- 
fore it came to pass, when the time was come 
about after Hannah had conceived, that she 
bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, 
Because I have asked him of the Lord." 

PRAYER ANSWERED IN PEACE. 

Her prayer was answered in the gift of 
a son of rare excellence, and answered, too, 
in the peace that came to her soul. And 
great was her peace. Every work of God, be 
it the work of perfecting matter, or sanctify- 
ing mind, begins in conflict, and culminates 
in peace. A chaotic world, as it is lifted out 



PRAYER, 21 

of darkness and rounded into beauty and order, 
approaches peace. The material world ap- 
proaches heaven, as the complete will of God 
is wrought upon it, and in like manner, man 
approaches God as his complete will is wrought 
in him. In his presence is peace. Hannah's 
prayer was answered in peace to her soul. " If 
we know," says John, " that He hear us, what- 
soever we ask, we know that we have the peti- 
tion that we desired of Him." She felt that 
she had her desire, that the Lord had heard, 
that the Lord was on her side. Her peace 
began before the child was conceived. It be- 
gan with those new ideas of purity, when she 
gave her body " a living sacrifice to the Lord," 
and with importunate prayer consecrated her 
all to Him. She was then of the "pure in 
heart " who see God." The clouds of un- 
belief had broken, and with a clearer vision, 
and purer hearty she, blessed of heaven, saw 
the God of peace. 



22 



HANNAH'S VOW. 



HER SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 

Hannah's prayer was answered in the spirit 
of beneficence that was poured out upon her. 
In putting her child from her, she revealed 
a heart full of sacrifice. She was prepared 
for any surrender which her Heavenly Father 
might ask. She saw no work of merit in the 
giving, it was but returning what the Lord 
had lent. The offering of beasts and flour 
and wine^ w^hich accompanied the putting away 
of her weaned child from her, made manifest 
the spirit wdth which she fulfilled her vow, as 
if she had said, The child, O Lord, is thine, 
I devote him to thy service forever. I return 
him to thee, and thou wilt not forsake me, 
nor the son thou hast given me.'' 

With the grace of supplication poured out 
upon her, came the grace of giving. It was a 
pleasure to give to the Lord — she gave freely, 
she gave joyfully. That she might keep con- 



PRAYER. 23 

stantly before her mind, not what she had done 
for the Lord, but what He had done for her, 
she called her son Samuel," which means, 
asked of God.'' The name was a constant 
reminder of what the Lord had done, and what 
great things He was wilHng to do, in answer to 
prayer. Her love for the child was not less, now 
that the surrender was made. Some mothers 
may think Hannah did not love her child as 
they do theirs, or she could not, in such a spirit, 
send away her son. But no, this act of Han- 
nah revealed, not that her love was less than 
that of other true mothers, but that it was a 
love enlightened and sanctified — a love modi- 
fied by a new revelation. She believed that 
every attribute of God was pledged in favor of 
her dear child, and, in giving him up at that 
tender age, to be sent from her, as she had 
vowed she would do, and as she believed was 
the will of God, she did just what she had a 
heart to do — did it cheerfully ; and this cheer- 



24 HANNAH'S VOW. 

fulness was not because her boy, just out of in- 
fancy, had lost any of his sweet attractiveness, 
or she any of her motherly instincts. That at- 
tractiveness of the child, and those instincts of 
the mother, were in all their strength. 

PRAISE AND PROPHECY. 

Again, the influence of Hannah's prayer was 
apparent in a new elevation and enlargement 
of soul. From this time forward she lived in 
a higher and purer atmosphere, and in the pos- 
session of a fuller and more heavenly life. She 
had come into that " large place of which the 
Psalmist speaks. " I called upon the Lord in 
distress. The Lord answered me, and set me 
in a large place." It was Hannah's mission to 
take her place among the inspired ones whose 
lips, touched with fire fromi the altar of Heaven, 
should give utterance to truths that should ap- 
pear in the record of inspired thought. Her 
song is never to die, for it has a place in the 



PRAYER. 25 

Word of God, and " the word liveth and abideth 
forever." 

" My heart rejoiceth in the Lord ; 
Mine horn is exalted in the Lord ; 
My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies ; 
Because I rejoice in thy salvation. 
There is none holy as the Lord ; 
For there is none beside thee ; 
Neither is there any rock like our God. 
Talk no more so exceeding proudly ; 
Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth : • 
For the Lord is a God of knowledge, 
And by Him actions are weighed. 
The bows of the mighty men are broken, 
And they that stumbled, are girded with strength. 
They that were full, have hired out themselves for 
bread ; 

And they that were hungry ceased ; 

So that the barren hath borne seven ; 

And she that hath many children is waxed feeble. 

The Lord killeth, and maketh alive : 

He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. 

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich : 

He bringeth low, and lifteth up. 



26 



HANNAH'S VOW, 



He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, 

And lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, 

To set ihem among princes, 

And to make them inherit the throne of glory : 

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, 

And He hath set the world upon them. 

He will keep the feet of his saints, 

And the wicked shall be silent in darkness ; 

For by strength shall no man prevail. 

The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces ; 

Out of heaven shall He thunder upon them : 

The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth ; 

And He shall give strength unto his King, 

And exalt the horn of his Anointed." 

Her prayer for her son, offered with such per- 
severance, was in silence. She spake in her 
heart, but her voice was not heard. But her 
song of thanksgiving was with an open mouth. 
Her joy was all of heaven, full of God. She 
rejoiced, first, not in that precious son of her's, 
so dear to her soul, but in the good God, who 
had given to her bosom a Samuel. She rejoiced 
not, first, in the new strength given her, but in 



PR A YER, 27 

the God of power. Her horn was exalted in 
the Lord. She was now victorious. Not secret 
foes within, nor enemies without, could conquer 
her. She rejoiced in his salvation. 

These little temptings, little snares 
Of common days and petty cares, , 
Laid not now insect-eggs of strife, 
To gnaw and worm the woof of life. 
Such peace in Faith's sweet whispering, 
* My Father thinks of everything.' " 

She now, consecrated to the Lord in the 
spirit of Nazaritism, had new revelations of 
his holiness, and could say, — 

" There is none holy as the Lord, 
For there is none beside thee ; 
Neither is there any rock like our God." 

This Hebrew mother now saw light in God's 
light. She had received a new baptism of love, 
and with this came a sense of his holiness, 
underived and complete^ which comprises per- 
fect wisdom, justice, truth, goodness, and mercy. 



28 HANNAH'S VOW. 

And this revelation, this higher and holier 
affection of her soul, drove out the lower. 

It was not now so much her own personal 
enemies, the Peninnahs and the like, as the 
enemies of the Church, of which she thought 
It was not now so much her own future ag- 
grandizement, and that of her house, that filled 
her thoughts, as the future of the Church, and 
the glory of God's kingdom. 

And so she closes this song with the declara- 
tion, that 

" The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces ; 
Out of heaven shall He thunder upon them/' 

which was fulfilled when Samuel prayed and 
the Philistines were discomfited, and which is 
to be complete in its fulfillment when the Lord 
comes to judge the ends of the earth, and the 
powers of darkness are everywhere subdued, 
and the glory of the Lord, like a sea, covers the 
whole earth. " And He shall give strength 
unto his King, and exalt the horn of his 



PRA YER. 29 

Anointed," are her closing words. There had, 
as yet, been no king, none anointed as such in 
Israel. These words were fulfilled when David 
was anointed king by her son, but were not 
complete in their fulfillment until He came, of 
whom David was but the type, and who is called 
in the Scriptures, King and Anointed, for the 
first time, by this Hebrew mother. Behold in 
these new names given to our Saviour by Han- 
nah, a new revelation, and a deeper compre- 
hension of Christ's greatness and glory, than 
came to those who had prophesied before her. 

MARY AND ELIZABETH. 

A like prophetic spirit and enlargement of 
soul do we see in the birth-song of Mary, the 
mother of our Lord, and her cousin Elizabeth, 
as revealed in their interview, as given in the 
first chapter of Luke. 

" And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth 
heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in 



30 HANNAH'S VOW, 

her womb ; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holj 
Ghost : and she spake out with a loud voice, and 
said, 

" Blessed art thou among women, 
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 
And, whence is this to me, that the 
Mother of my Lord should come to me ? 
For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation 
sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my 
womb for joy." 

Lo, the power with which this wave of bliss 
broke upon her unborn child. 

" And blessed is she that believed : for there for 
there shall be a performance of those things 
which were told her from the Lord." 

" And IMary said, 
" My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
And my* spirit hath rejoiced in God my Sav- 
iour. 

For He hath regarded the low estate of his hand- 
maiden : 



PRAYER. 31 

For behold, from henceforth 

All generations shall call me blessed. 

For He that is mighty hath done for me great 

things ; 
And holy is his name. 
And his mercy is on them that fear Him, 
From generation to generation. 
He hath showed strength with his arm ; 
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of 

their hearts. 
He hath put down the mighty from their seats. 
And exalted them of low degree. 
He hath filled the hungry with good things, 
And the rich hath He sent empty away. 
He hath holpen his servant Israel, 
In remembrance of his mercy. 
As He spake to our fathers. 
To Abraham, and to his seed forever." 

Ten centuries separated these women, and 
yet Hannah and Mary spake in a like exultant 
an 1 prophetic strain, because they were in a 
like life. They were educated in the same 



32 HANNAH'S VOW, 

Oriental customs and habits of thought. The 
memory of Mary was stored with prophetic 
songs, of which this of Hannah was one. But 
more than this, they possessed a Uke spirit of 
consecration. Elizabeth and Mary and Han- 
nah were alike filled with the Holy Ghost. 
And will not every woman, who is in a like 
spirit of ancient Nazaritism, breathe forth utter- 
ances that speak of a like enlargement of soul, 
and sense of God's holiness, and of the glory 
of his house as to be more thought of than 
private aggrandizement ? These mothers in 
Israel saw God, and were blessed in the behold- 
ing, because the pure in heart ever thus see 
and are blessed. They were brought into a 
large place, because of a new baptism of love. 
A poet has said, — 

" Before I loved, I was a child, and sported on the sands, 
But now the ocean opens out, with all its happy lands." 

And wherever this new baptism of love comes, 



PRAYER, 33 

it ever brings with it a like enlargement. That 
enlargement expressed itself differently among 
an ancient and Oriental people, familiar only 
with Hebrew modes of thought, from what it 
does under the changed habits of modern 
times. And yet, in the changes of times and 
customs, we see human nature the same — 
the heart expanding, as new fountains of love 
open in the soul, and ever rising, as love deep- 
ens, into higher expressions of prayer and of 
praise. 

MRS. EMILY C. JUDSON. 

That gifted woman, Mrs. Emily C Judson, 
m^issionary to Burmah, was never so full of the 
spirit of song as when she penned the follow- 
ing lines, written in joy for her first-born : — 

" Ere last year's morn had left the sky, 
A birdling sought my Indian nest ; 
And folded, oh, so lovingly, 

Her tiny wings upon my breast. 
3 



HANNAH'S VOW, 



" From morn till evening's purple tinge, 
In winsome helplessness she lies ; 
Two rose leaves with a silken fringe, 
Shut softly on her starry eyes. 

There 's not in Ind a lovelier bird ; 

Broad earth owns not a happier nest ; 
O God, thou hast a fountain stirred. 

Whose waters never more shall rest. 

" This beautiful, mysterious thing, 

This seeming visitant from heaven, 
This bird with the immortal wing, 
To me, to me, thy hand has given. 

" The pulse first caught its tiny stroke. 
The blood, its crimson hue, from mine 
This life which I have dared invoke, 
Henceforth, is parallel with thine. 

" A silent awe is in my room, 

I tremble with delicious fear; 
The future, with its light and gloom, 
Time and eternity are here. 



PRAYER. 35 

" Doubts, hopes, in eager tumult rise. 
Hear, O my God, one earnest prayer ; 
Room for my bird in Paradise, 
And give her angel-plumage there." 

And whence came these utterances to this 
woman, which have winged their way over the 
earth, and awakened a response in the hearts 
of so many mothers ? Mrs. Judson may have 
been, to some extent, indebted to the polished 
rhetoricians of ancient Greece for the smooth, 
sweet flow of her verse, but certainly she owed 
nothing of her inspiration of thought to Grecian 
literature, which nowhere sung of the sweet 
charities of domestic life, and never taught that 
the first stirrings of a mother's love could be a 
theme worthy of a poet's pen. 

This woman's inspiration came not from the 
polished Greeks, for they had none to give ; 
but from the chosen people of Israel — • those 
to whom the oracles of God were intrusted — 
from the same spirit of infinite tenderness and 
holiness that inspired the heart of Hannah. 



36 . HANNAH'S VOW. 

Mrs. Judson's consecration in marriage, 
went with her consecration to the missionary 
work. Like Hannah, the Hebrew mother, her 
deeper views of wedded life went along with 
broader and more earnest and practical views 
of the Church's work. 

This sanctification of heart, which came to 
Hannah with the gift of her son, was a prepa- 
ration for the life-work before hen She was 
prepared to be a mother to the children after- 
wards given her, as she could not have been 
without this baptism from on high. Her pure 
spirit of Nazaritism endowed her with the pa- 
tience and meekness and faith needed in the 
training of her children. 

In doubts and difficulties she could go to 
Godj in confidence, for light and strength — 
and in sickness, and in separation, ever find 
consolation in the promises of her Heavenly 
Father. He henceforth was her refuge and 
her joy. In what circumstances can a wife, in 



PRAYER. 37 

Hannah's spirit, fear to assume the duties of 
maternity ? fear the responsibility of being a 
mother of sons and daughters ? fear to trust God 
in poverty and sickness ; and in meeting and 
combating difficulties that come from the weak- 
ness and waywardness of childhood ? There 
is no power on earth like that of the mother 
over her children; for as she is placed the 
nearest to the souls of her children, so also is 
there given her a power to mould their spirits, 
such as all earthly influences, within the family 
and without, cannot counteract. The story is 
told of a pious mother whose infidel husband 
made a jest of religion, and that too in the 
presence of his children ; yet, notwithstanding 
their father's ridicule, the mother succeeded in 
bringing them all up in the fear of the Lord. 
She was once asked how she had saved them 
from the influence of a father whose sentiments 
were so utterly opposed to her own. This was 
her answer : " Because to the authority of a 



38 HANNAH'S VOW, 

father I did not oppose the authority of a 
mother, but of God. From their earliest years, 
my children have always seen my Bible upon 
my table. This holy Book has constituted the 
whole of their religious instruction. I was 
silent, that I might allow it to speak. Did they 
propose a question, did they commit a fault, did 
they perform any good action, I opened the 
Bible, and the Bible answered, reproved, or en- 
couraged them. The constant reading of the 
Scriptures has alone wrought the prodigy that 
surprises you." 

This mother, we see, was silent, that her chil- 
dren might hear the " still small voice of the 
Spirit. She was strong, as Hannah was strong 
— strong, as every weak lone mother may be 
strong — strong in the Lord, and in the power 
of his might. 

I will not say more on the after effects of a 
consecration like that of Hannah's, for fitting 
the wife thus endowed to bring (in spite of 



SAMUEL'S CHILDHOOD. 39 

all opposing influences) all the children God 
may give her into the fold of Christ. Remem- 
ber, O wife, God will ever care for the little 
ones given to your keeping ; and as He has 
made your breasts a fountain of food for their 
bodies, so will He make your heart a fountain 
of nourishment for their souls. Faith in the 
Heavenly Father will ever do this, giving you 
abundantly of the sincere milk of the Word, 
that your children may grow thereby. 



III. 



Samuel's childhood. 

OT only are we to consider the answer 
to Hannah's prayer as it came in a new 
and heavenly peace to her soul, but 
also in the fruU of her body, the gift of a son of 
rare excellence. 

At a very tender age he was removed from 
this the best of mothers, and months intervened 
between the brief visits of the mother to her 
son j and the separation then was not what it 
would be now. Those were not the days of 
swift travel and cheap postage. There was 
but one swift, sure, and constant communica- 
tion opened to her, and that was through the 




SAMUELS CHILDHOOD, 4 1 

Lord. This line of spiritual telegraph which 
the Lord opened for her, never failed ; and her 
precious child had access to the same, and at 
that tender age was prompt to avail himself of 
it. The child Samuel had his trials ; the de- 
fects of Eli's character, his not doing, and the 
profligacy of his two sons, show that there was 
much to lead astray ; but Samuel was kept from 
the evil that was around him. An invisible 
hand was leading him. He won the heart of 
Eli, who, with all his defects, loved those who 
loved the Lord. 

Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a 
child, girded with a linen ephod ; and the child 
Samuel grew on, and was in favor, both with 
the Lord and also with men. He was a child 
in whose early spiritual development there was 
everything that was attractive to men. " He 
was in favor with men.'' The piety of this 
precious child was all natural and child-like. 
Away from his home, and always to be from 



42 HANNAH'S VOW. 

under the eye of that loving mother, his home 
was his Heavenly Father's house ; and here, 
in the sacred symbols and services, was that 
which developed a boy-nature that was sweet 
and joyous. 

Here was not a precocious development, that 
hid the child in the premature man, but one 
that made his loving boy-life beautiful to be- 
hold. 

While yet a child he became a prophet of 
the Lord ; and the first message he was called 
upon to deliver greatly tried his firmness of 
character. It was no less than to tell to the 
high-priest the fearful judgments that were to 
come upon his house. 

The closing of this child-history reveals the 
boy Samuel as all alive to divine impressions. 
His influence, even then, extended through the 
nation. We read that Samuel grew, and the 
Lord was with him, and did let none of his 
words fall to the ground ; and all Israel, from 



SAMUEL'S CHILDHOOD, 43 

Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was 
established to be a prophet of the Lord." 

How brief the direct personal influence of 
this mother upon her boy, and yet how sym- 
metrical and strong his character. When just 
out of infancy, she sends him from her, where 
he is to be tempted, where he is to learn to 
work, where great responsibilities are to be as- 
sumed ; and yet how well fortified against the 
evil — how well fitted for the work. Hannah's 
personal supervision over Samuel, after he was 
weaned, seems to be all told in this one verse : 
" Moreover, his mother made him a little coat, 
and brought it to him from year to year, when 
she came up with her husband to offer the 
yearly sacrifice," As he wore this little coat, 
made with a mother's hands, so did he wear 
her own beautiful nature. He was clothed with 
a like spirit of love, of prayer, and of praise. 

Hannah entered upon a life of spiritual 
Nazaritism when she gave her body in mar- 



44 HANNAH'S VOW. 

riage for offspring for the Lord. In a day of 
spiritual darkness, when children in the nations 
around were sacrificed in fear to evil spirits, 
she, moved by a holy love, consecrated the fruit 
of her body to the Lord. 

Samuel's power in prayer. 

We have seen that Hannah knew how to 
pray and not faint ; we have now to see that 
Samuel knew the same. 

Twenty years had passed since the child-his- 
tory closed, and during this period the Philis- 
tines invaded the land, stole the ark of the 
Lord, slew the two sons of Eli, and Eli himself 
died of grief. ' And through all these years, 
defeat and bondage, poverty and corruption 
marked the condition of Israel. And now the 
man Samuel spake unto the people as they 
began to be a little alive to their impiety: If 
ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, 
then put away the strange gods, and Ashtaroth, 



SAMUELS CHILDHOOD. 45 

from among you, and prepare your hearts unto 
the Lord, and serve Him only, and He will de- 
liver you out of the hands of the Philistines. 
Th'en the children of Israel did put away Ba- 
alim, and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only.'* 
Here Samuel comes to view as the divinely ap- 
pointed leader in this revival : his earnest words 
fill them with hope. In these days of corrup- 
tion, he drank only of the stream that flows 
from the throne of God, and in his utterances 
he imparted his own higher life to the people. 
His faith fired their hearts. God was with him. 
His power rested upon him. 

" And Samuel said. Gather all Israel unto 
Mizpeh, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. 
And they gathered together to Mizpeh." Hum- 
bled by their trials, they had a glimpse of the 
truth that Samuel had power with God. He 
was not a ruler they had elected, but Israel 
began to believe in him. They came to Miz- 
peh to fast and to confess their sins, and the 



46 HANNAH'S VOW, 

Philistines rose up against them ; when the 
children of Israel, full of fear, said to Samuel, 
" Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for 
us, that He will save us out of the hands of 
the Philistines/' And Samuel prayed. "And 
the Lord thundered that day with a great thun- 
der upon the Philistines," and they were smit- 
ten before Israel. 

It was not the rattle and roar of rifle and 
cannon that these unarmed Israelites heard, 
doing battle for them. It was not the modern 
needle-gun and mortar against the spear and 
shield of ancient barbarism. It was more than 
the might of these modern weapons of war. It 
was His presence of whom it is said, He be- 
held and drove asunder the nations, and the 
everlasting mountains were scattered, the per- 
petual hills did bow." And His aid was evoked, 
thundering in the heavens, scattering Israel's 
enemies by the prayer of one man. Samuel 
was humble, unambitious, sought not his own, 



SAMUEL'S CHILDHOOD. 47 

thought not of his own personal aggrandize- 
ment. But was he not a prince in Israel, of 
the highest lineage ? the royal son of a regal 
mother ? Were not the words of Joshua veri- 
fied in him ? " One man of you shall chase a 
thousand ; for the Lord your God He it is that 
fighteth for you." There is no account of 
Samuel's faith wavering. His lessons in prayer 
had been so taught him, that his faith failed 
not. 

Mark the results of this victory, and see in 
these how he prayed and how he prevailed. 

" And the Philistines were subdued, and they 
came no more into the coast of Israel : and the 
hand of the Lord was against the Philistines 
all the days of Samuel." 

In the days of the judges before him, and in 
the days of Saul after him, the Philistines were 
the Israelites' most formidable foes ; but they 
were powerless in the days of Samuel, for this 
leader of Israel was like Nehemiah the cup- 



48 HANNAH'S VOW. 

bearer of Ahasuerus ; he ever stood in the pres- 
ence of the great King. 

The best government the Jews ever had, the 
least expensive, and the least oppressive, was 
during the judgeship of Samuel. And yet 
the people were not pleased. His prayers 
brought God too near. They wanted to see 
the pomp a-nd glory of a king's court. They 
rejoiced in the victory and peace that came in 
answer to prayer ; but the thunder that dis- 
comfited their enemies made uneasy consciences 
among themselves. As at Mount Sinai when 
amidst the thundering and lightning God gave 
his law to his people, they felt they were too 
near; so now this simple patriarchal govern- 
ment with such a praying man at its head, 
brought with it too much of heaven for their 
carnal natures. 

Every human government is a type of the 
Divine. Some bring God nearer than others 
do. These Israelites preferred a form of gov- 



SAMUEL'S CHILDHOOD, 49 

ernment that put the Lord farther off. So they 
made the failings of Samuers sons, whom he 
had called to his aid, an excuse for asking for 
a king — and Samuel was displeased. They 
do not say, " Put better men into office/' but, 
" Change the whole form of government.'' 
This request was " evil in the eyes of Samuel." 
But what did he do ? Just what was like him, 
and like the mother who bore him. Samuel 
prayed unto the Lord," and the Lord said unto 
Samuel, " Hearken unto the voice of the people, 
in all that they say unto thee : for they have not 
rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I 
should not reign over them." 

Israel's first king. 

Then came a new order of things. Samuel, 
the last of the judges, was set aside as ruler, 
and Saul, the first of the kings, reigned ; but 
Samuel was the one who prepared the way ; 
and he went about his work in the spirit of 
4 



50 HANNAH'S VOW. 

cheerful obedience and of prayer. He warned 
the people of the evils which this change would 
bring upon the nation ; and he watched over 
Saul with a father's solicitude. His severe re- 
bukes of him for his disobedience, revealed his 
courao^e and his keen sense of rio;ht. 

We read, Then came the word of the Lord 
unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I 
have set up Saul to be king, for he is turned 
back fi'om following me, and hath not per- 
formed my commandments." What impression 
did this communication make upon his mind ? 
Did he say, Just as I thought — the fruits of 
this man's folly, will show the people that I 
am right ? '' Ah, the Lord had given Samuel 
another spirit. His patriotism was all of 
heaven. " xVnd it grieved Samuel, and he cried 
unto the Lord all night." 

Samuel had to deal with a selfish, lawless 
king, and a like people ; but he himself was 
perfect in his disinterestedness, perfect in his 



SAMUEL'S CHILDHOOD, 51 

obedience. He was here again the son of the 
self-sacrificing Hannah, true to every holy in- 
stinct. True to his deeply sanctified nature, he 
had set his heart upon Saul ; he was a father 
to him ; he wanted to make a man of him, and 
he could not give him up. He had anointed 
him, a stranger, in the place of one of his own 
house, as he afterwards anointed David, another 
stranger, — and did this after long years of rule, 
— did it while a judge from whose decision 
there was no appeal, — and did it lovingly ; 
because God had virtually said, " This stranger 
shall come and take thy place ; he shall in- 
crease and thou shalt decrease." 

" Hannah vowed a vow, and said, O Lord 
of Hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the afflic- 
tion of thine handmaid, and remember me, and 
not forget thine handmaid, and wilt give unto 
thine handmaid a man child, then I will give 
him unto the Lord, all the days of his life, and 
there shall no razor come upon his head." 



52 HANNAH'S VOW, 

And this Samuel was the gift. This life, so 
full, so finely balanced, so well rounded, run- 
ning through a century, bright in its rising, 
glorious in its setting, was the answer to her 
prayer. 

As this mother returned this gift, with all her 
heart, back again to her God, so the son, in 
the spirit of his mother, gave his life for his 
people. 

"To them his heart, his loves, his griefs, were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven/' 

Samuel's reappearance after death. 

This grand life was not given to the world 
that after Samuel's death men might deify him 
and worship at his shrine. The heathen na- 
tions did this to their great men, and the Jews 
would have done the same if a wisdom higher 
than man's had not prevented. No pilgrimages 
were made to the shrine of Moses, for his grave 
God had hidden : and none to the shrine of 



SAMUEVS CHILDHOOD, 53 

Samuel, whose character was of like pure and 
lofty type ; for Samuel reappeared, after his 
death, and showed himself powerless to save. 

Consider how this singular after-death occur- 
rence strikes at the spirit of idolatry in the mind 
of the Jew, taking, as it does, all the God from 
Samuel, and giving it to Christ. 

Samuel dies, and reappears at Endor, at the 
request of Saul, and at the incantation of a 
priestess or witch. Samuel is here, among evil 
spirits, not of them, — but, for the time being, 
and for a purpose, among them. If the dark- 
ness that is around him is the darkness of the 
unseen world, it is because it is the fit back- 
ground of a picture, the radiant glory of which 
is also of the unseen world. That picture is 
Christ appearing to Saul of Tarsus. The Sav- 
iour appears to Saul the persecutor about noon, 
and with the breaking upon him of a light 
greater than that of the sun. It is nearer 
midnight when Samuel appears to Saul the 



54 HANNAH'S VOW, 

king, — the hour is in keeping with the spiritual 
condition of the group, who are seeking counsel 
from the unseen world. Jesus says, " Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou me ? You are in- 
juring me in the persons of my people — in 
the persons of my chosen ones — those for 
whom I died.'' Samuel, in contrast, brings 
no charge against Saul, the king, for injuring 
him, but simply says, ^'Why hast thou dis- 
quieted me, to bring me up ? '' — as if saying, 
" My coming can do you no good.'' Christ, in- 
finite in love and power, comes to Saul, the 
persecutor, without his seeking him — Samuel, 
in himself, as weak and as dependent as when 
here on earth, comes at God's command, and 
at the request of Saul. 

Says Samuel, in reply to Saul's declaration 
that God had forsaken him, " Wherefore, then, 
dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is de- 
parted from thee, and is become thine enemy ? 
And the Lord hath done to Him [for Himself], 



SAMUELS CHILDHOOD, 55 

as He spake by me [mine hand] ; for the Lord 
hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and 
given it to thy neighbor, even to David : be- 
cause thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, 
nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek^ 
therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto 
thee this day. Moreover the Lord will also 
deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the 
Philistines : and to-morrow shalt thou and thy 
sons be with me : the Lord also shall deliver 
the host of Israel into the hand of the Philis- 
tines." All Samuel can do is to tell the king 
of his guilt and condemnation — he is power- 
less to do more. He is of the unseen world, 
but he is not a god — simply a holy man — 
jealous of the honor of God, as when here on 
earth — and as dependent upon Him. 

At the words of Samuel, Saul falls to the 
earth — as falls Saul of Tarsus at the revelation 
of Jesus. But it is not Samuel revealing him- 
self that takes away the strength of Saul ; it 



56 HANNAH'S VOW. 

is his revealing God's justice and judgments — 
the same power that brings persecuting Saul of 
Tarsus to the earth. Both of these men — 
these Sauls — are smitten to the earth by 
God's justice revealed ; but how different the 
end. For while the unrepenting king, seeking 
through unlawful means man's aid, bows in 
despair, the stricken but penitent persecutor 
finds hope in Jesus. 

Both take food, and are strengthened : the 
king, to be conquered in his last battle with the 
Philistines, the spiritual enemies of the Church, 
losing both his kingdom and his life : the per- 
secutor, to enter upon a life of successful con- 
flict with the powers of evil. 

This last scene of Samuel's history teaches 
that great men do not turn into independent, 
self-sustained gods when they die, to be wor- 
shipped here on earth. It teaches, also, that 
if God in Christ saves not, there is no salva- 



SAMUELS CHILDHOOD, 57 

tion. King Saul had Moses and the prophets j 
them he would not hear, neither would he be 
persuaded into repentance, though one rose 
from the dead. 



IV. 



ELKANAH. 

E have made prominent the mother's 
influence in forming the character of 
Samuel. Are we to infer from it that 
as a psychological fact the father^s influence is 
hardly worth mentioning in the comparison ? 

The Bible gives ground for no such inference. 
Elkanah was a God-fearing man, and desired 
and prayed for a son, but did ?iof pray as Han- 
nah did. There was with her a deep earnest- 
ness and wrestling of soul which he knew^ not 
of. The very words of cheer which the good 
man used, show that he had not her faith. Why 
is thy heart grieved ? am not I better to thee 




ELK AN AH. 59 

than ten sons ? " As if he had said, " Let it all 
go, I love you, and my love is worth more than 
the gift of children." 

But she could not let it go. She fasted and 
wept and prayed, and before the answer came 
she poured out her soul as few wives have ever 
prayed. 

The design of this story is not to tell us the 
relative influence of the father and mother upon 
the child before birth, but to show us how God 
answers a wife's prayer, and what, for a wife, is 
a legitimate subject of prayer. 

The husband here may have had as strong 
faith, in some directions, as his wife. Two per- 
sons of equally strong faith may not manifest 
their faith in the same way. Samuel, it is evi- 
dent, had as strong faith as his mother ; he 
prayed like his mother, and yet his soul did 
not go out with the same energy for the same 
objects for which she wrestled. He prayed as 
the judge of Israel, as their leader in battle, 



6o 



HANNAH'S VOW, 



and as a teacher of the school of the prophets. 
In these directions went his desires, his work, 
his prayers \ and Hannah could not have taken 
his place in prayer^ while she had not his sphere 
in work. But in another sphere the mother 
was stronger than the son. Samuel had sons, 
and prayed for them, but not as his mother 
prayed for him; and it is evident that his wife 
was not a Hannah. 

She prayed as only a woman can pray for a 
son. If woman has less strength of body and 
less steadiness of brain than man, she has a 
greater power of patient enduring love to be 
called out towards offspring. 

Mrs. Hemans, herself a mother, says, — 

" There is none 
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount 
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within 
A mother's heart. You ne'er made 
Your breast the pillow of his infancy, 
While to the fullness of your heart's glad heavings 
His fair cheek rose and fell ; and his bright hair 
Waved softly to your breath.'' 



ELKANAH. 



6i 



" Not yours, the face 
Which early faded through fond care for him, 
Hung on his sleep, and duly, as heaven's light, 
Was there to greet his wakening ; you ne'er smoothed 
His couch, ne'er sung him to his rosy rest, 
Caught his least whisper, when his voice, from yours 
Had learned soft utterance ; pressed your lips to his 
When fever parched it ; hushed his wayward cries 
With patient, vigilant, never-wearied love ; 
No, these are womait's tasks." 

All that speaks of woman's greater power 
of loving and enduring, tells wherein she has 
greater power in prayer ; so this story of Han- 
nah was sent directly to the heart of every 
maiden, wife, and mother ; and reveals the 
wife's sphere^ the wife's desire, and wherein 
lies her power with God. 

She stands nearer the soul of the child than 
stands her husband ; her influence here is more 
constant and immediate than his. I do not say 
that her influence is always greater ^kid.xi his over 
the child, but always different. The Lord de- 



62 HANNAH'S VOW. 

signed that the husband should greatly influ- 
ence the child through the soul of the wife. 

ELKANAH's tender regard for HANNAH. 

Suggestive on this point is what we are told 
of Elkanah's regard for Hannah. How he 
loved her, how he honored her in public. 

In her great trials she had her husband's love 
to console her j and that love the Lord designed 
should raise the woman into a higher and holier 
womanhood, fitting her in soul and body for 
the duties of maternity. For woman was given 
to man in marriage, that he might himself rise 
into a higher and holier love, and that he might 
lift his wife into a like love. Says the Apostle, 
" Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the 
Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might 
present it to Himself, a glorious Church, without 
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it 
should be holy and without blemish.'' Behold 
how a self-sacrificing love has a purifying and 



ELKANAH. 63 

elevating power, as truly in the typical relation 
of husband and wife as in the higher relation 
of Christ and the Church. Thus the maiden, 
as she in marriage feels the influence of a noble 
manhood, is raised thereby into a higher wom- 
anhood. 

Now Elkanah's love for Hannah did bear 
some of these marks of a true love. It did 
help her resist the adversary. It did strengthen 
her to persevere in prayer. It did help to steady 
her life and hold her mind in peace, from the 
conception to the birth of the child. 

Samuel was not only the son of a pious 
mother but of a God-fearing father, who, in an 
age of great ignorance and moral degradation, 
had the courage and the conscience to worship 
with his family as Moses had commanded. 
And if Samuel and his parents were now on 
the earth, with the same bodies they had then, 
we doubtless should see some of the features 
of the father in the son, with the mental and 



64 HANNAH'S VOW, 

moral traits of the father, as well as the fea- 
tures and characteristics of the mother. But 
as it was the design of the Bible to teach, not 
science, but religion ; not psychology, but faith ; 
or rather, all science as valueless save as it 
reveals God, and all knowledge as vain without 
love j so this story comes to us, revealing the 
meaning and the might of prayer. 

Medical writers and others speak of the in- 
fluence of the mother's tastes and pursuits dur- 
ing the period of gestation upon the child. 
The child (they teach) is more or less aifected 
then by what is the mother's soul-work. If with 
her there is a passion for the beautiful, reveal- 
ing itself in painting, sculpture, poetry, or more 
humble pursuits, the child's taste will be affected 
by the same. An ennobling passion of the 
mother in full play at this period, will ennoble 
the offspring, and a base passion degrade. 
Again, the child may show not so much the 
mother's characteristics as the fathet^s ; the 



ELK AN AH, 65 

mother (and here is an explanation but in part) 
not possessing these qualities, but loving them 
in him j and through her love, making them her 
life, to impart to their child. 

There are various opinions expressed by 
writers as to the influence of the mother's mind 
during this period of gestation upon her off- 
spring, but all believe in that influence, and 
that when imparted to the child it may be more 
or less apparent through generations. 
5 



V. 



SCIENCE. 

ND are not the teachings of science 
in keeping with the lessons of our 
story ? Do we not see the same law 
of inheritance here apparent in the kingdom of 
grace, in a like manner apparent in the king- 
dom of nature ? and revealing itself with like 
limitations in every grade of organic life ? 

All nature, from the lowest to the highest 
organism, illustrates the law of inheritance that 
"like produces like." Let us consider how 
truth in the higher organism is illustrated by 
truth in the lower. 




SCIENCE. 



67 



INHERITED MUSCLE. 

Muscle is hereditary in men. ISlone doubt 
that it is, in horses and dogs. The attention 
that has been given to the breeding of these 
animals has settled the question, so far as they 
are concerned. The same law holds good, 
applied to mankind. Let us take one or two 
facts from English history that bear on this 
point. The favorite sports of a very large class 
in England have been rowing and wrestling. 
All London turns out annually to witness boat 
races on the Thames, and a desire to excel in 
these feats is so great and coveted by so many, 
that, when one is a victor, he stands out as the 
strong man among thousands. Now if it were 
found that two or three of a family often won 
prizes as oarsmen, the presumption would be 
that muscle was hereditary. A perfect passion 
for rowing pervades large classes in other parts 
of England. At Newcastle-on-the-Tyne all 
business is deserted when a great race takes 



68 HANNAH'S VOW, 

place. Henry Clasper was the name of an ex- 
traordinary oarsman, and he belonged to a large 
family a number of the members of which had 
been victors in these races. For many years 
this man was stroke " of a four-oared crew, 
and frequently the whole crew were members 
of the Clasper family. For eight years this 
crew won the championship of the Tyne. Six 
times he pulled stroke for the crew, winning 
the championship of the Thames. He had 
also pulled in thirty-two skiff matches, and won 
twenty of them. He had a son who was a very 
excellent oarsman, and who, in seventy-six skiff 
matches had won fifty of them. Henry Clas- 
per had other sons too young to have shown 
their powers ; but of his brothers, two, if not 
three were greatly distinguished. Eight other 
instances are mentioned in the list of this wri- 
ter, in the history of boating in England, where 
two and sometimes three and four members of 
the same family were distinguished in these 



SCIENCE. 69 

athletic exercises. A similar enthusiasm for 
wrestling has been apparent for many years in 
parts of England ; and facts bearing on the 
subject of inherited muscle among wrestlers, 
confirm what has been said of row^ers. 

The Olympic games of the ancient Greeks, 
celebrated with the greatest enthusiasm by the 
whole nation, illustrated this same law of in- 
heritance. There was a carefully kept record 
of these games, which doubtless contained 
much which bore on the subject of inherited 
muscle, but that record is lost. The story is 
told of a married woman, who venturing to be 
present while the games were going on, though 
the penalty was death, was discovered, but ac- 
quitted because her father, brothers, and son 
had been victors in these games. 

INHERITED FORM, FEATURE, AND COMPLEXION. 

What is here said of muscle as an inherit- 
ance, may be said of form and feature and 



70 HANNAH'S VOW, 

complexion, and every physical characteristic. 
Viewing the human family as divided into races, 
this is most apparent. Of the African, Ameri- 
can, Caucasian, Malay, and Mongolian races, 
we find that in form and features and complex- 
ion each race differs from all the others. And 
all the physical peculiarities that belong to each 
have been handed down, with little change, 
through many generations. Now what is very 
apparent when mankind are viewed as thus 
grouped into families of nations, where millions 
are seen classed together, is apparent, also, 
where a single pair is seen imparting to their 
children their own peculiar physical traits — 
traits that appear in one of their children and 
not in another, or in the second generation 
and not in the first. So a family of individuals 
illustrates the same law of inheritance as a 
family of nations. There is now at Harvard 
College a portrait of John Rogers the martyr, 
which shows that he had red hair. His numer- 



SCIENCE, 71 

ous descendants, in this country generally re- 
tain to this day the family characteristic. It is 
said of him that he had a strong will, and 
doubtless a powerful constitution, and trans- 
mitted his physical qualities with great force. 
The Webster family, of which Daniel was the 
most conspicuous member, had thick heavy 
eyebrows. This could be traced for generations 
through several branches of the original stock. 

Dr. Franklin inherited the face and form of 
his mother's family, whose name was Folger. 
The same form and cast of features are seen 
in the descendants of his mother's brothers. 
Some of the Tappans, descendants of Frank- 
lin's sister, show the same family resemblance. 
Lucretia Mott, the widely known Quakeress, 
whose mother was a Folger, has the same cast 
of countenance. 

A beautiful face sometimes passes over one 
generation to appear in the third. A writer in 
the " Book of Days," says, " I know very inti- 



72 HANNAH'S VOW, 

mately, a young lady, who, in countenance, in 
part, and in the peculiar form of the feet, is pre- 
cisely a revival of her great-grandmother, whom 
I also knew intimately. I could also point to 
another instance, where a woman of deep olive 
complexion and elegant oriental figure, the in- 
heritress, perhaps, of the style of some remote 
ancestress, has given birth to children of the 
brown sanguineous type of her own brothers 
and sisters, the .whole constitutional system be- 
ing thus shown as liable to sinking and emer- 
gencies." 

INHERITED BRAIN. 

Some imagine that if there is good health 
and ordinary mental endowments, the extraor- 
dinary powers of mind will manifest themselves 
every time, if all the conditions of education are 
complied with. 

We know that favoring outward circum- 
stances are important to the development of 
any mind ; but not the best education that has 



SCIENCE, 73 

been given, or will be given in the future, when 
the science of education is perfected, will make 
one man equal to another in mental endow- 
ments. 

We know but little of the ancestry of William 
Shakespeare, but of one thing we are certain, 
his advantages of education were poor. Edu- 
cation as a science, was far from being then 
what it is now ; and he had not a careful train- 
ing in the best schools of his day. And so the 
inference is plain^ that it was inherited brain, 
and not a better education, that made him one 
of the most gifted of any age. 

The same may be said of that great engineer 
and self-made man, George Stephenson. While 
he was yet a poor miner boy, fast approaching 
manhood, and not knowing how to read or 
write, other lads of his age, in England, were in 
school, far advanced in their studies, and rap- 
idly mastering principles which underlie results 
which he was first to reach. George Stephenson 



74 HANNAH'S VOW, 

was called the railroad king, and the crown was 
by public acclamation put upon his head, and 
not upon another man's, for the simple rea- 
son^ that he possessed more inherited genius 
than others. This man's education was, in one 
view, admirable. He was led on to success 
through poverty and toil, and his work, from 
boyhood up, was at the engine of the coal pit, 
learning its uses, and studying how to remedy 
its defects. This pupil, in his inherited qual- 
ities, was prepared for his school. Without 
this inheritance, his training would have been 
no more to him than it was to thousands of 
poor and ignorant miners about him. Their 
eyes were holden, they could not read the book 
which he read — they could not gather the dia- 
monds which he alone gathered in the dark 
mines of the earth — for he alone held the 
Aladdin lamp of inherited genius. 

Frederick Douglass, the distinguished editor 
and orator of our country, was born in slavery, 



SCIENCE, 75 

and remained in that condition until he en- 
tered manhood, suffering enough cruelties to 
break the spirits of ordinary mortals. With 
a giant's strength, he arose above these soul- 
crushing influences and accomplished what not 
one in a million in like circumstances could 
have done. In his autobiography he speaks of 
his grandmother as a woman superior in ability 
and influence to those about her, and of his 
mother as of much the same type of character ; 
making it manifest that he was born to his in- 
heritance of genius. 

Whoever forces his way through barriers that 
prove too strong for one of a million, gives 
evidence of the possession of an inherited 
superiority. If the barrier is of a kind that 
only the muscles of one man of a million can 
break, the evidence is that he has inherited 
more muscle than others. If the barrier is of a 
kind for brain to break, and one brain out of a 
million alone conquers, the proof is that more 



76 HANNAH'S VOW, 

brain has been inherited by that one than by 
the multitude. Some few out of the million 
may have inherited as much power, and even 
more than himself, while adverse circumstances 
prevented its development in them, which did 
not exist with him. If the competition was 
confined to ten or twenty, the proof of inherited 
superiority would not be so plain, but when the 
strife is with ten or twenty thousand, the evi- 
dence accumulates ; swell the crowd in the 
race to millions, and the proof is overwhelming. 
We have, in the history of letters, accounts 
given of individuals greatly distinguished for 
certain mental traits who have belonged to fam- 
ilies, other members of which have shown pro- 
digious power in the same direction. 

Richard Person, the eminent Greek scholar 
and critic of the last century, was a man of vast 
and varied acquirements. He had a brother 
who died young, who was thought to have been 
fully equal to him ir^ scholastic ability ; and a 



SCIENCE. 77 

sister also, who had the wonderful Porson 
memory. These children inherited, from their 
talented mother, their mental characteristics. 
It is an easy thing to multiply examples like 
these. 

That a genius for art is inherited, we see in 
the history of the families of painters. Joseph 
Vernet was a painter in France^ of the last cen- 
tury, celebrated for his marine views. His son 
Charles was celebrated for his paintings of 
horses and farm-yards. His grandson, Horace 
Vernet, ranks among the foremost of the mod- 
ern French school. 

Thomas Moore, in his life of Lord Byron, 
says, It cannot fail to be remarked how strik- 
mgly he combined in his own nature some of 
the best, and perhaps worst qualities that lie 
scattered through the various characters of his 
predecessors — the generosity, the love of en- 
terprise, the high-mindedness of some of the 
better spirits of his race, with the irregular 



78 HANNAH'S VOW, 

passions, the eccentricity, and daring reckless- 
ness of the world's opinion that so much char- 
acterized others. The facts from history which 
I have here stated, illustrate how different 
qualities of body and brain are inherited. 
Education can do much to develop both body 
and brain, but the success of the best educator 
is dependent upon inherited qualities in those 
whom he instructs. The superior teacher is 
like a skillful worker in wood, who can make 
handsome furniture of poor material ; but 
these products of his skill will not compare 
with the work of the same artisan when better 
wood is in his hands. 

The law of life among created things is 
everywhere the same. From the lowest to the 
highest form of created existence we see the 
same law^ of inherited qualities. In the lowest 
of vegetable life does the law appear, that like 
produces like, and in the highest of animal ex- 
istence is the same law manifest. The same is 



SCIENCE. 79 

true of all the qualities of the human body, and 
also of the varied qualities of the human intel- 
lect. And what is true of man's body and 
mind, is true also of his moral nature. 

MORAL QUALITIES INHERITED. 

Vices are inherited, and virtues are inherited. 
There is a difference in vices ; some are more 
directly sins against the body than are others, 
and go more swiftly to the seat of life than do 
others, poisoning the blood, which is the life, 
and making over, as an inheritance to children, 
the whole mantle of a parent's misery. The 
body of a person given over to intemperance, 
succumbs sooner to the power of that vice than 
the body of one given over to avarice. The 
vice of licentiousness is more marked and im- 
mediate in its effects upon the body than the 
vice of lying. 

A medical writer relates the following in- 
cident : " Some years ago, I was the attending 



80 HANNAH'S VOW, 

physician of a gentleman of Virginia who oc- 
cupied a distinguished office under the govern- 
ment. He was highly respected. He married 
a lady twenty-two years of age, who inherited 
from both her parents a most vigorous consti- 
tution, combined with great personal beauty, 
but dull mental temperament. Her husband 
was thirteen years her senior, and was also 
blessed with perfect healthy and possessed 
all the qualifications of a gentleman save one, 
sobriety. He was a periodical drunkard. This 
propensity he inherited from his father. His 
ungovernable thirst for alcoholic stimulants 
generally occurred every nine months. His 
wife had three children : the first was sickly 
and weak, and weighed not more than two 
pounds at its birth, and lived but a few weeks. 
The second, a female, born an idiot, is now in 
a lunatic asylum. The third, a son, who at 
the age of fifteen, became like his father, a 
periodical drunkard, licentious and reckless, 



SCIENCE, 8 1 

indulgent in all his appetites, and devoted to 
liquor to a degree almost unparalleled.'^ 

The records of medical writers contain many- 
such incidents as this physician narrates, all of 
which illustrate the power of intemperance in 
one generation to blight with its curse the 
children of the next. And mark here how 
God in mercy arrests evil. In this family, the 
evil is traced through three generations ; and 
then the power to reproduce its likeness ends. 
To appearance, this husband and wife, save for 
this intemperance, might have had their lives 
blessed with many healthy, well-organized chil- 
dren. Their children were few, for the law is 
that the same influence that tends to produce 
an excess of evil propensities, tends to disease, 
idiocy, barrenness. 

The story is told in " HalPs Journal of 
Health," of a gentleman of convivial habits 
who often retired from the society of his boon 
companions intoxicated. While these habits 
6 



82 HANNAH'S VOW, 

were upon him, he had a daughter born, who 
grew up intelligent, temperate, and every way 
attractive, and who married a temperate, up- 
right man. This pair were greatly prospered. 
With their wealth were given two healthy, in- 
telligent sons, who grew up drunkards. The 
following are the remarks of the "Journal" on 
this family: "The leprosy of drunkenness _did 
not break out in the first generation. The cul- 
tivation and the refinement of the daughter 
were all in antagonism to what might foster the 
habit of drink, and so it skipped over a gen- 
eration, the tinder being applied to the torch, 
to be kindled into flame, under the greater sus- 
ceptibilities of boyhood life and surroundings. 
It is precisely in this manner that insanity over- 
leaps a generation or two ; thus also it is that 
a child bears no resemblance to the grand- 
parents or great-grandparents. Doubtless in 
innumerable cases the foundation of drunken- 
ness, in persons yet unborn, has been laid by 



SCIENCE, 83 

parents retiring after the sumptuous dinner or 
the evening party, one or both saturated with 
wine, or worse. Let the terrible truth impress 
itself on the thoughtful reader^s mind, that in a 
Massachusetts asylum, for the cure of idiotic 
children, three fourths were born of parents, 
one or both of whom were habitual drinkers of 
spirituous liquors. It is surely not necessary to 
state more clearly the inferences to be drawn 
from these observations, and yet men are so 
dull of comprehension sometimes as to require 
the plainest teachings ; and still this lesson is 
of importance but little less than infinite. It 
suggests the abeyance of perpetuative functions 
when under alcoholic influence. The self-same 
lesson is powerfully taught in the facts recorded 
in medical works, showing that if the mother 
suckles her infant within half an hour after 
being in an ungovernable rage, it will be im- 
mediately thrown into convulsions. 

The great broad fact then remains, that 



84 HANNAH'S VOW. 

mental and physical constitutions, appetites, 
propensities, and passions which mould the 
physical condition of the infant, nursed under 
their influences, fix the character of the being 
begotten at the time of their prevalence. And 
under this most important practical principle 
having such a controlling power in forming 
the character, and fixing the destinies of the 
unborn as well as the babe, are ranged that 
large class of what are regarded as mysterious 
cases, where children are so totally different 
from their parents in their mental and moral 
characteristics.'' 

It would not be difficult to add to the facts 
given by these medical writers, and show that 
not only intemperance has a tendency to re- 
produce itself, but every vice ; that in this law 
there is no exception ; that the strength of this 
tendency is in proportion to the controlling 
power of the vice, modified in its descent to 
children by the state of body and mind at the 



SCIENCE, 85 

time of conception • also by the consideration 
that one or both parents are in the evil life. 
I only give suggestions where volumes might 
be written. A word to the wise is sufficient, 
while many words would not avail to those 
confirmed in evil. Saith the wise man, 
" Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a 
mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not 
his foolishness depart from him." 

We have seen how full the law of inherit- 
ance is. All living forms illustrate it. It is 
the law of the tree, the animal, the man — man's 
whole nature. In man, the law that like pro- 
duces like, may appear more disguised than in 
the tree or animal, but it is the same law, 
though the forms of its manifestations are more 
complicated. " A good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth 
good fruit." Everything in nature points up to 
man, the lowest illustrating the highest. " Truth 
is the strongest in its lowest manifestations." 



86 HANNAirs vow. 

But if the evidence of law is the clearest in its 
lowest manifestations, the strength of law is as 
great in the highest. Hannah bore a son in 
her own likeness. In answer to prayer was 
the child given ; but it was not necessary for 
the Heavenly Father to work a miracle to an- 
swer the petition. The mother, in her entire 
surrender of all to God, came into a fuller and 
purer life, and imparted that life in all its heav- 
enly quality to her son. 

We have seen how one given over to evil 
affections imparts those affections. The story 
of this Hebrew mother teaches how one given 
over to good affections imparts those affec- 
tions, and by the same unvarying law that 
runs through all grades of existence. 

We have here opened to us two books — the 
book of God's works, and the book of his 
word. In the book of his works we see evil 
descending unto the third and fourth genera- 
tion. In the book of his word the Lawgiver 



SCIENCE. 87 

says, will visit the iniquity ot the fathers 
upon the children, unto the third and fourth 
generation of them that hate me." Behold 
here a Power behind physical forces, behind 
law. 

If in law, illustrated in history, we see tem- 
perance, chastity, and every virtue reappearing 
in a better life, in descendants, imparting 
health to the whole nature, the Bible speaks 
of the same : I will show mercy unto thou- 
sands of them that love me and keep my com- 
rtiandments." The Bible teaches, and provi- 
dences teach, that God will arrest evil quickly. 
The command is, " Honor thy father and thy 
mother, that thy days may be long upon the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee " — 
which implies that disobedience shortens the 
life of the house. And this, too, is the law 
of nature. It becomes more and more difficult 
for evil, in each generation, to reproduce itself. 
It is easy for evil to start, and, if left to itself, 



88 



HANNAH'S VOW. 



to grow and fill the world, but God hedges it 
about, blasts it with barrenness. Long ere this 
the world should have been filled with inhabit- 
ants. It has stood six thousand years, and 
still there are millions on millions of goodly 
acres that are a waste wilderness. We open 
the book of God's works for an explanation, 
and read that the power of evil to reproduce 
itself diminishes as the strength of evil in- 
creases. We open the book of His word, and 
read that " The light of the wicked shall be put 
out j " that " The place of the wicked shall 
come to naught ; " that " The seed of the 
wdcked shall be cut off*.'' These threatenings 
are not always fulfilled by thunderbolts. The 
rule is that they are executed by the silent 
working of ordinary laws ; their fulfillment 
creeping along, hidden from man's dull com- 
prehension, in silence, in darkness, — Making 
not haste — taking not rest," — going on in 
their God-given order to their goal. Men see 



SCIENCE, 89 

this in the lowest forms of life, and forget it in 
the highest. They see that a corrupt tree 
cannot bring forth good fruit, and forget that a 
wicked deed cannot bring forth good results. 
The Psalmist^ in seeing these things, was 
tempted as are other men. 

" But as for me, 
My feet were almost gone ; 
My steps had well nigh slipped. 
For I was envious at the foolish, 
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 
For there are no bands in their death, 
But their strength is firm. 
They are i^ot in trouble as other men. 
Neither are they plagued like other men. 
Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain ; 
Violence covereth them as a garment. 
Their eyes stand out with fatness : 
They have more than heart can wish. 
They are corrupt, 

And speak wickedly concerning oppression.'' 



The Psalmist, by his own reasonings, was un- 



go HANNAH'S VOW. 

able to understand why the wicked were per- 
mitted to live on in their prosperity. There 
was nothing in the light of nature to help him 
out of his difficulty. By prayer God was re- 
vealed, and eternity brought near. And thus 
lifted up, he saw history in a new light. 

" When I thought to know this, 
It was too painful for me ; 
Until I went into the sanctuary of God ; 
Then understood I their end. 
Surely Thou didst set them in slippery places ; 
Thou castedst them down into destruction. 
How are they brought into desolation 
As in a moment ! 

They are utterly consumed with terrors. 
As a dream when one awaketh, 
So, O Lord, when Thou awakest, 
Thou shalt despise their image." 



VI. 



Hannah's descendants. 

HY is so little said of the descendants 
of this Hebrew mother? We read 
that three sons and two daughters 
were afterward given to Hannah, because of 
the boon of this, her first-born, to the Lord. 
And yet there is no record of them as far su- 
perior to other men and women. They may 
have been^ and their children may have been, 
after them ; and a better body-life and soul-life 
may have infused itself, in time, throughout the 
whole Jewish nation, because of this Hebrew 
mother's consecration. But to what extent all of 
this did take place, we have no account given. 




92 HANNAH'S VOW, 

Certainly there was everything in the consecra- 
tion of this woman that fitted her to bear chil- 
dren nobly furnished in body and mind, and to 
educate them after they were born. There was 
everything in the work of grace in Hannah's 
heart, and in the heart of her husband, too, 
that looked to that result ; and yet the only 
record of her grandchildren was of two sons 
of Samuel, whom he made judges over Israel, 
and who walked not in his ways, but turned 
aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted 
judgment. And these were the sons of that 
man who was a prince with God, grandsons 
of that woman who was a princess in Israel. 
And why should a family of a house so royal 
be so soon stricken ? And how can we har- 
monize these facts with the teachings of sci- 
ence and the Bible? 

The facts of this family history are in perfect 
harmony with all of God's teachings of heredi- 
tary influence. We are nowhere taught that 



HANNAH'S DESCENDANTS. 93 

truth is always to be victorious. It will surely 
be in the end. But in the long conflict of ages 
there are ever times and seasons when it can 
be said of evil, " This is your hour." 

The crystal stream that rushes from the rock, 
may find the right soil to receive it, and may 
roll on, gathering strength as it goes, until it 
reaches the sea ; or this same bursting stream, 
because of bogs and quicksands in its way, may 
quickly hide underground — not to be lost, but 
to reemerge in its own good time ; and then 
dividing into a thousand rills, hiding in the 
grass of a thousand meadows, may quench the 
thirst of myriads of orchards and forests and 
flocks and villages. In the history of the house 
of Hannah there is not a word said, or left 
unsaid, which proves that this mother did not 
impart a better physical as well as spiritual life 
to her descendants^ which was widely diffused 
through the nation, and to remain through all 
time. All that is really told of her grand- 



94 HANNAH'S VOW, 

children is, that Samuel's two sons did not as 
their father, but as the world did ; for, under- 
stand, the integrity of Samuel was extraordi- 
nary for the times. And when his sons per- 
verted judgment and took bribes like common 
kind of men, the people seized upon this as an 
excuse for asking for a king, rather than be- 
cause it had become a great and sore evil. 
Then the Lord took these sons of Samuel out 
of the way of temptation, and their after-history, 
as also that of their descendants, was in a more 
hidden, a more humble, and doubtless in a 
safer path. To Hannah was given a life, not 
so much for her times, as for some remote 
period. The fruit of her faith was felt at once. 
The gift of such a son to the nation w^as a 
priceless boon — but while the fruit of her wis- 
dom w^as for her own times, her wisdom was 
for a distant age. Some generation of gentile 
mothers were to comprehend her character far 
better than did the Hebrew women of her day. 



HANNAH'S DESCENDANTS, 95 

Hannah lived more than a thousand years 
before the coming of Christ, and three hundred 
years after her people had come out of Egypt, 
a nation of emancipated slaves. During the 
forty years of their wandering in the wilderness, 
the generation had passed away that had lived 
as bondsmen to idolaters, and their children 
grew up with ideas of purity and obedience, 
such as their parents never had ; for this gen- 
eration were made familiar from childhood, with 
the pure worship of the tabernacle, which was 
in contrast with the impure worship of the 
idolatrous Egyptians with whom their parents 
had lived, and in the place of the tyrant of 
Egypt who oppressed their fathers, came the 
God of Israel to lead the children, to tell them 
when and where to march, and when and where 
to pitch their tents. And thus, in the hard les- 
son of camp life, they received ideas of holiness 
and of obedience, as their fathers could not 
receive them. For forty years the Israelites 



96 HANNAH'S VOW, 

were shut out from the world, and when at last 
they left the wilderness and came to the longed- 
for Canaan, this earthly paradise was every- 
where cursed with the presence of an idola- 
trous race. The trail of the serpent marked 
every rood of earth, and so extermination, to 
the extent which God commanded, became an 
act of self-preservation to the Jews. They had 
no strength to resist. Separated from the na- 
tions around, they were to stand on the defen- 
sive. The command had not yet been given, 
Go ye into all the world, and preach the gos- 
pel to every creature." More than a thousand 
years were to pass before that new power would 
come upon the earth. It is not easy to realize 
the condition of the Jews in that remote period, 
our own times are so different. The Jews were 
a people who alone of all the earth had the 
oracles of God. Thus chosen, they had a won- 
derful experience to relate, of miracles and 
mercies, but their experience was not like ours. 



HANNAH'S DESCENDANTS, 97 

in light and liberty, and in a long line of an- 
cestors enlightened and free. They were but 
three hundred years out of slavery, and all this 
time either walled in by a desert or by vile 
heathen hordes. They were surrounded by 
tribes whose acts of public worship were but 
lessons to these heathen and to their children 
in lust and cruelty. Think of these Jews, as 
thus surrounded. It is now the childhood of 
their history \ a time with them of great moral 
feebleness, when they are easily enticed ; and as 
they look out upon the nations, they see every- 
where those who have more cunning and culture 
than themselves, and who have better weapons 
of war, and better acquaintance with the arts 
and sciences than they possess. How are they, 
in their feebleness, to resist such odds? How 
can they hinder from growing smaller the ring 
of death which girdles them ? How can they, 
so feeble and so few, fight successfully the 
great kingdom of darkness that fills all the 
7 



98 HANNAH'S VOW. 

world? They alone in the world. Satan's 
kingdom everywhere set up. On all sides, rocks 
that issue poisoned streams, ramparts that shoot 
forth arrows of death. 

POLYGAMY. 

The moral feebleness of the nation is appa- 
rent in the fact that polygamy existed among 
the Jews as an allowed institution. This peo- 
ple had all the light given them as to the na- 
ture of marriage, which they were capable of 
receiving. Polygamy was only an approxima- 
tion to marriage. Its presence, as an allowed 
thing, was far from giving the best type of 
family life ; but was the best the nation could 
receive. Under it there were sore trials for 
the wife, as Hannah's experience illustrates ; 
but to the nation this domestic infelicity was 
less of an evil than another that might have 
come. The taking away of polygamy as an al- 
lowed thing might have brought them more 



HANNAH'S DESCENDANTS. 99 

under the influence of the heathen, leading the 
women of Israel to contract marriages with 
them and fall into their abominations. So 
while polygamy brought its own peculiar evils 
into the house, it gathered, with greater 
strength, into families, the whole nation, and 
isolated them the more, in that each woman 
could easily find a place as a wife with her 
own people. 



VIL 



ART. 

E see that the moral feebleness of the 
nation in Hannah's time prevented 
others of her people from entering 
into her pure spirit of Nazaritism. Would a 
higher degree of culture in art and literature 
have given a strength of mind and clearness of 
vision that would have brought the needed 
moral vigor to the nation ? Is there such a 
virtue in mere culture ? Art has a wonderful 
power ; but has it the power to reach the great 
height that this Hebrew mother attained ? 
Does it possess, in itself, a light that can bring 
to the soul such conceptions of the perfections 




ART. lOI 

which dwell in God, and of the perfections 
which are yet to dwell in man ? 

ART AND GRECIAN HISTORY. 

We have an illustration of what art can do, 
in what it did for ancient Greece. The Greeks, 
who had reached the height of their fame five 
hundred years after Hannah lived, possessed 
an inheritance of genius and culture which has 
never been surpassed. In the district of At- 
tica dwelt the ablest sub-race of the Greeks. 
This district, in which Athens was situated, 
contained, in its most flourishing period, a 
population of five hundred and thirty thousand. 
Of these, ninety thousand were free-born cit- 
izens, forty thousand resident aliens, and a la- 
boring and artisan population of four hundred 
thousand slaves. Out of a district that con- 
tained, in its brightest days, not over ninety 
thousand native free-born persons, there ap- 
peared, within a century, statesmen and com- 



102 HANNAH'S VOW, 

manders, literary and scientific men, poets and 
sculptors, whose fame has filled the world. It 
will not be extravagant to say that among the 
thousands of millions who have lived upon the 
earth since that day, men cannot be found who 
surpassed in mental and physical furnishing 
what this little district of Attica produced in 
every department of thought. Among com- 
manders and statesmen who appeared within 
a century, there were Themistocles, Miltiades, 
Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles ; among literary 
and scientific men, Thucydides, Socrates, 
Zenophon, and Plato ; among poets, u^schylus, 
Sophocles, Euripides ; and among sculptors, 
Phidias. Men of thought and action in all 
ages have had a far wider sphere to operate 
in than these possessed ; but think of their 
influence upon the world in their different 
departments. Think what they have done 
to form the character of the most gifted minds 
of modern times. As the great of different 



ART. 103 

ages and countries have looked back, and 
studied the lives of these Greeks, they have 
seen their own natures mirrored forth in minds 
that were brought to an extraordinary degree 
of perfection. And whence came such a rich 
inheritance to such a little country ? What law 
of inheritance did these Greeks obey, which 
others did not ? What system of physical and 
mental culture did they follow out, which others 
neglected ? They kept up the national enthu- 
siasm for physical excellence. For centuries 
their national festivities were observed with the 
greatest enthusiasm, the most celebrated of 
which were the Olympic games. These games, 
in which all Greece united, consisted not only 
of contests in running and wrestling and all 
gymnastic feats, but also of horse and chariot 
races, and contests in music and poetry. These 
great national gatherings brought together 
merchants, for traffic, and poets, philosophers^ 
and historians read their most recent works. 



I04 HANNAH'S VOW. 

The gymnastic games were open to every 
Greek, rich or poor, and of whatever district, 
and the greatest and wealthiest men of every 
city took part in them. Cylon, who sought to 
make himself tyrant of Athens, gained the 
prize in a foot-race. Alexander, son of Amyn- 
tus, prince of Macedon, had also run for 
it ; and instances occurred in which cities 
chose their generals from victors in these 
games. Everywhere were these victors held 
in great honor. It is difficult for us to con- 
ceive how deep was the conviction in the 
Greek mind of the value of a right physical 
education. The Greeks believed that their 
superiority over other nations depended upon 
keeping up the life of the body. They believed 
that there could not be a sound mind save in 
a sound body, and they more than held to the 
theory, — they were converted to the thought. 

The rich and great put themselves in train- 
ing for these games, as well as the poor ; and 



ART. 105 

as they were open to all who were of the Greek 
blood, they were exceedingly popular with all 
classes. Inseparable from this earnestness for 
a physical education, and growing up with it, 
and out of it, came the Greek's idea of the per- 
fection of physical beauty, which he was ever 
seeking to embody in statuary and painting. 
In the Greek mind, the gods did not appear 
hideous and deformed, as they were wont in 
the conceptions of the Oriental nations. The 
Greeks worshipped life and beauty, and their 
great carefulness in educating the body helped 
them to see what constituted the real perfection 
of the human form. In this love of bodily 
culture, and of the beautiful, do we see a 
power that kept up so marvelously the life of 
the nation. The Spartans, another branch of 
the Greek famil}^, discarded art, which the 
Athenians prized so highly, but gave even 
greater attention to the training of the body. 
The Spartan girls, before marriage, had con- 



I06 HANNAH'S VOW. 

tests in the presence of the men, in all feats of 
skill, speed, and strength ; the primary object 
being to fit them to bear strong and healthy 
children ; and this object was never made 
secondary to any domestic service or house- 
hold accomplishment. This physical training 
of the Spartan girls was rewarded by giving 
to the state the bravest, strongest, and most 
enduring race that ever lived. As the Spartan 
discarded and affected to despise many of the 
accomplishments which the Athenians prized, 
he did not transmit to his offspring that inher- 
itance of genius, wdiich the Athenian did ; but 
while he was often dull, harsh, and cruel, he 
was strong, enduring, and the bravest of the 
brave. That love to which the Spartan gave up 
his life, he transmitted to his descendants. 

TRUE SPIRITUALITY W^ANTING. 

Why did the light of the ancient Greeks grow 
less? Why did they pass away and cease to 



ART. 107 

be a power among nations ? They should 
have conquered the world. If their spiritual 
natures had been developed, they in the best 
sense would have done so. Their ideas of 
education, so truthful in the recognition of the 
mind's dependence upon the body, seeing more 
in thought than we moderns see, was yet de- 
fective, in that the spiritual nature was omitted 
in the training. The lower nature was culti- 
vated with the higher left out. 

The sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit upon 
the heart is to restore the lost harmony of man 
with God ; and that implies a restoration of the ^ 
harmony of man with himself. That restora- 
tion of the harmony of man with himself w^as 
never reached by the Greek, and the renowned 
city of Athens was never farther from it than 
when she had reached her highest point of cul- 
ture. The Lord raised up in Athens a few such 
leaders as Aristides, that her citizens might see 
the beauty of justice, and learn to love that 



I08 HANJSrATI'S VOW. 

heavenly attribute. They saw the nobleness 
of the man, and felt the truth of his utterances, 
but they grew tired of the teachings, and tired 
of the teacher. They banished the one and 
forgot the other. And so of the noble Socra- 
tes ; he taught of God, plead faithfully with his 
countrymen, and, according to his light, sought 
to lead them to a higher life. They grew tired 
of his lessons, and put him to death. The 
worship of the countrymen of Socrates was 
self-worship. A spirit of pride and vain-glory 
ruled the city. In their materialism they did 
not know, or wish to know, that God was a 
spirit, and that they that worship Him must 
worship Him in spirit and in truth. They did 
not say, " Let the beauty of the Lord our God 
be upon us," but " Let the beauty of Athens be 
upon us ; let the beauty of art be upon us." 
Full of self-praise, they worshipped the beauti- 
ful alone, forgetting Him who is the source of 
all beauty. As the love of science and art with 



ART, 109 

this vain people became intensified, it but car- 
ried them farther from the great fountain of 
wisdom. 

Macaulay, the historian, thus brings before 
his readers a picture of the proudest days of 
Athens : Books were the least part of the 
education of an Athenian citizen. Let us for a 
moment transport ourselves in thought to that 
glorious city. Let us imagine that we are en- 
tering its gates in the time of its power and 
glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. 
All are gazing with delight at the entablature, 
for Phidias is putting up the frieze. We turn 
into another street. A rhapsodist is reciting 
there. Alen, women, children, are thronging 
round him \ the tears are running down their 
cheeks ; their eyes are fixed, their very breath 
is still, for he is telling how Priam fell at the 
feet of Achilles, and kissed those hands — the 
terrible, the murderous — which had slain so 
many of his sons. We enter the public place ; 



I TO H ANN A ITS VOW. 

there is a ring of youths, all leaning forward 
with sparkling eyes, and gestures of expecta- 
tion. Socrates is pitted against the famous 
Atheist from Ionia, and has just brought him 
to a contradiction in terms. But we are inter- 
rupted. The herald is crying ' Room for the 
Prytanes ! ^ The general assembly is to meet. 
The people are swarming in on every side. 
Proclamation is made. 'Who wishes to speak ? ' 
There is a shout and a clapping of hands. 
Pericles is mounting the stand. Then for a 
play of Sophocles, and away to sup with As- 
pasia.'^ 

Macaulay has here given us a sketch of a 
day. The city is full of worship. All is adora- 
tion and praise — but who receives the praise? 
It is " Glory to the men who built our city ; to 
the men whose genius embellishes it ; to the 
men whose presence honor it." We have noth- 
ing higher here than self-worship. This day 
in Athens which has been described, ends with 



ART. 1 1 1 

a visit to the house of Aspasia. It was the 
fashion of the day, the renowned of the city 
honoring thus the genius of a beautiful courte- 
zan. History tells us that in these bright days 
there was a growing distaste for marriage. The 
meaning of this weakening of public morals 
was, that slowly the generation that was to 
come was to grow more feeble in body and 
mind and character than its fathers. 

The gospel which the Apostle Paul preached 
was foolishness to the polished Greeks. When 
Paul stood on Mars Hill, he looked in the face 
an audience more polished, perhaps, and more 
intellectual than any he had ever addressed. 
Athens, in the days of the Apostle, was the same 
in spirit, though not in power, as in former 
times. The renown of her schools drew to- 
gether men of letters from all countries. This 
people crowded around to hear what Paul would 
say, and they listened to his persuasive words, 
until he told of the resurrection of the dead. 



112 HANNAH'S VOW. 

And when they heard of the resurrection of the 
dead, some mocked, and others said, We will 
hear thee again of this matter. A few believed, 
but we nowhere read of Paul's epistle to the 
church at Athens. The great Apostle found 
multitudes ready to hear, and to patronize the 
gospel which he preached, criticising his mes- 
sage from God, and his manner of presenting 
that message ; but few indeed were ready to 
believe. He found less encouragement, it would 
seem, in this renowned city, than in any other. 
These Greeks sought after wisdom, but that 
which they sought made the wisdom of God 
foolishness to them. Far, indeed, were such 
minds from comprehending the consecration 
which Hannah made in her surrender to God. 
The lesson which Grecian history gives is in 
keeping with the account of the progress of the 
gospel among the Jews. That class of Jews 
which was the slowest to receive the humbling 
truths of the gospel, was the polished, powerful, 



ART. 113 

and best educated. Christ chose his disciples 
from a less pretentious class, for in the hearts 
of such He found less hinderance to his words. 
They had not so much pride of opinion to sur- 
render j they had less to unlearn ; and as these 
humble teachers of the cross passed the bound- 
aries of Palestine, they found everywhere a 
civilization unfitted to receive them. This little 
band of obscure men from the Judaean hills, 
went forth, unfurling the banners of the cross, 
and before them fled the powers of darkness. 
The throne of Rome went down, and that iron 
sceptre of the Caesars was broken, which had 
so long ruled the world. 

MENTAL CULTURE NO ENEMY TO GRACE. 

A high degree of culture is not necessarily 
unfriendly to the reception of the Divine word, 
but when that culture comes which feeds only 
a self-seeking and vain-glorious spirit, it hin- 
ders the light. When the heralds of the cross 
8 



114 HANNAH'S VOW. 

Vvent forth from Judaea, the fall of Rome had 
already begun. This tree, the shadow of whose 
branches had so long fallen upon the nations, 
was dying at the root, and the light which 
came to quicken into life as it fell upon this 
dying greatness, only hastened the decay. In 
speaking of the civilization of the ancient 
heathen world, I have dwelt more upon that of 
Greece, because both the success and the fail- 
ure of that people forcibly illustrate the lesson 
of our story. They were successful over other 
nations because they ennobled the body, as 
other nations did not ; and they rose in the 
possession of wealth and intellectual greatness, 
and for a time transmitted a stronger life to 
their children, because of this physical culture, 
and this conception of the human form as noble 
and ennobling — a conception shown in statues 
and paintings of marvelous beauty. This con- 
secration of the body to the end which was 
sought, brought its reward. It brought health, 



. ART. 115 

and a power to endure, and a heart to put away 
enervating vices. It brought victory over hos- 
tile nations. The Greeks conquered others, 
because they conquered themselves wherein 
others did not. Their bodily consecration 
brought mental gifts, helping them to unlock 
the secrets of science and of art. But as this 
life was intensified, a spirit of vain-glory grew 
into marvelous proportions also ; as it always 
will where God is forgotten. Then came the 
beginning of the end. They worshipped them- 
selves in the temples which they reared, and 
statues which they raised to their gods. Public 
justice and truth and holy charity were held 
in light esteem, their history revealing, that, as 
of men, so of nations, Pride goeth before de- 
struction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.'^ 

HANNAH AND THE GREEKS. 

This Hebrew mother, like the Greeks, put 
honor upon the body. She considered it 



Il6 H ANNA ITS VOW, 

worthy to be presented as a living sacrifice 
unto the Lord. The Greeks honored it, as an 
offering at the shrine of earthly greatness. In 
their history, we see their thoughts of the body 
worked out in the achievements of a great 
nation through generations. In the story of 
Hannah w^e have her thoughts revealed, in her 
own life and in that of her son. They are not 
worked out in the life of a nation. We have 
not before us a million of such mothers, bless- 
ing with their lives their age, and transmitting 
to their descendants their own spirit of holy 
Nazaritism. This is for the future. Hannah's 
song of thanksgiving was not the only prophecy 
she uttered. Her life was a prophecy. It told 
of a time when a nation would arise, of nobler 
men and fairer and statelier w^omen than any 
that had dwelt upon the earth. It told the 
coming of the crowning race of the world. 



VIII. 



INSTINCTS. 




x\NNAH, in her consecration, here 
cherished instincts in all their strength ; 
instincts which man holds in common 



with bird and beast, fish and insect. Will it be 
said that these instincts were never designed to 
be carried along in all their strength in the 
upward progress of the race ? that in the re- 
fining process of a civilization which lifts soci- 
ety up to perfection, the higher expels the 
lower ? Will it be said that the rational comes 
down into the heart with an expulsive power 
that drives out the instinctive ? that man sins, 
because linked to the life below him ? and 



Il8 HANNAH'S VOW. 

that he becomes holy, because he rises out 
of these instincts ? Will it be thought that he 
rises into a higher humanity, only as the rela- 
tionship which he sustains to the brute kingdom 
is weakened, and, in the end, wiped out? We 
reply, so far from man's higher nature expand- 
ing only as his animal nature is lessened, that 
the spiritual is dependent upon the instinctive, 
and can only be developed with it. The in- 
stinctive may grow and thrive in a living crea- 
ture without the spiritual ; but the spiritual 
cannot expand into a stronger and better life 
without an animal nature on which to rest as a 
foundation. The brute, with the instinctive, 
lives without the spiritual ; but man, with his 
spiritual life, cannot exist without the instinct- 
ive. The basis of humanity is animalism. 
The instrument of our progression, and the 
power of our highest enjoyment as human be- 
ings, is in our spiritual nature. But it is be- 
cause of our instincts given, that we become 



INSTINCTS. 119 

human beings ; because of our instincts remain- 
ing, we continue human beings. 

We believe that perverted views, more or 
less prevalent, have taken from the moral of 
this lesson of the Bible, and made it seem that 
this story of a Hebrew mother was not so much 
for our age as for a less enlightened period. 
Let the truth never be forgotten, that the ad- 
vancement of the race in real progress and 
right development means the advancement of 
man's whole nature. These animal instincts 
are more than the mere scaffolding of the 
building, to be removed as rubbish w^hen the 
house is perfected. They are the very founda- 
tion hidden deep in the soil, and yet as truly a 
part of the building, which stands forever, as 
that which is last in the structure. God gives 
to the tree root and fruit. Th^ root is first and 
the fruit last. Years intervene after the root 
begins to grow, before the fruit appears ; and 
the root is deep down in the earth, and the 



I20 HANNAH'S VOW. 

fruit high up from the ground, but neither 
separation in time nor space can make the 
fruit independent of the root. The tree grows 
because the root grows, and the trunk, and 
branch, and leaf, and flower, and fruit live and 
perfect, because the hidden and underground 
part of the tree lives and grows. 

Thus of the higher and the lower in man. 
These God-given instincts animate organized 
material forms — their end and function is the 
maintaining of these forms. The law, made 
everywhere apparent, is, that the higher prin- 
ci^Dle descends into the principle next below 
— the rational into the instinctive, and the in- 
stinctive into the inanimate. For instinct, in its 
most comprehensive sense, is God-given life in 
its deepest descent ; and as life descends from 
the great Fountain down to man, and from 
man to the animal and vegetable kingdoms be- 
low, so light ascends from these depths below. 
It is here of the light of nature as of the Bible, 



INSTINCTS. 121 

the stronger truth comes up from its lower 
manifestations. We have Bible truth buried 
the deepest in type, in the earliest dispensa- 
tion, but Divine truth is not diluted by being 
thus hidden. From our standpoint, truth in 
type, in the Old Testament, brings us into the 
very inner life of Christ ; and to those who 
lived before Christ came, it was in the best 
form in which truth could come, revealing itself 
to some in the way best suited to their nature, 
and concealing itself from others who would de- 
stroy the pearl of truth if the protecting shell 
was broken. Think how unfitted w^ere those 
semi-barbarous Jews, in the time of the Judges, 
for seeing Christ's holiness, or being benefited 
by exhibitions of his miraculous power. His 
righteousness would have been lost upon them, 
save as it came in the deepest concealment ; 
and so He came to them in type. Samson, the 
typical Nazarite, was that type. His strength 
was muscular, such as the rudest men com pre- 



122 HANNAH'S FOH 

hend. How easy for such darkened minds to 
understand the strength in Samson's victories ; 
how hard to understand the strength in Christ's 
victories. How easy for such to see the power 
that was appUed when the temple of Dagon 
fell and Samson died ; how difficult to under- 
stand the strength put forth when He who had 
power to lay down his life, put forth that power. 
Thus the Bible teaches as Nature teaches, that 
truth is the strongest in its lowest manifesta- 
tions — strongest in its lowest manifestations to 
hold its place in sin-darkened minds. 

As of the Bible, so of Nature. How heavenly 
the truth in the deep veil of Nature's symbols. 
Lo ! God is in its lowly mosses, its humble 
lilies, its bees and its humming-birds. All 
Nature sparkles with gems of truth scattered 
for earth's children to gather. Here is the 
common honey-bee, not only with a body won- 
derfully furnished for its work, but all educated 
from the first. It is both armed for its warfare 



INSTINCTS. 123 

and its work, and inspired to know just what to 
do — and its work is perfect. Does not this 
perfected knowledge of the bee, and the energy 
and swiftness and accuracy wjth which it works, 
help us to comprehend what our bodies will be 
hereafter, and what the instincts of our souls 
which inhabit those celestial bodies will be, in 
the fuller and more direct revelation of truth 
that is to come from the great Fountain ? Is 
there not, too, a gem of truth taught in the 
government of the hive, where bees piled to- 
gether in perfect darkness, bring light out of 
this darkness and confusion, each one knowing 
his place, and the laws of his tiny kingdom, and 
loving his work, and living under a government 
as though one head contrived for all and one 
heart beat for all and one soul animated all. 
Have we not here a precious light flashing up, 
pointing to a perfected kingdom where one full 
and holy life is breathed into the hearts of all 
its people ? From countless lessons of Nature 



124 HANNAH'S VOW, 

we select that of the humming-bird. With what 
^ ease it darts backward and sideways ; and cir- 
cles and flashes from flower to flower, probing 
accurately each cup, and drawing daintily the 
honey. How beautifully in its tiny sphere of 
haze it waits at each flower, humming out a life 
too intense for our dull eyes to see. The bird 
in its halo and heaven-sent plumage, suggests 
what perfected animal instincts will be in a 
perfected human body. 

Is it for the Holy Spirit to take the things 
of Christ and show them unto us ? Then the 
things of Nature, as of the Word, are revealed 
by the Spirit, for of Christ is it said, All 
things were made by Him and for Him." The 
Lord, then, would be revealed in the lowly 
mosses, in the humble flowers and bees and 
birds ; and far, far more in the- human form, 
which was his, and which is essential to man- 
hood ; and in human instincts which were his, 
and which are essential to humanity. 



INSTINCTS, 125 

Let us never forget that these instincts are 
God-given and God-honored. They are feet 
without whose hastening there is no food for 
the spirit ; tliey are bowels without whose yearn- 
ing there is no blood for the soul. 

MONKERY. 

Hannah did what the Apostle Paul enjoined, 
when he asked for the body as a living sacri- 
fice, holy, acceptable unto God." She, a thou- 
sand years before the gospel dispensation, pre- 
sented her body to the Lord, ^'a living sacri- 
fice." And mark how far her surrender was 
from that spirit of monkery which, in after 
years, so interpreted the words of Paul as to 
make consecration mean annihilation. Hannah 
did not, in this spirit of monkery, bring her 
mind over to hate her body, and then offer it to 
the Lord, a despised thing. She did not think 
the Lord asked for the surrender of that which 
was worthless, and which He could not look 



126 HANNAH'S VOW. 

upon with complacency. She believed in con- 
ecration as the opposite of this, and that God 
sought the gift that He might bless it with his 
own life, that He might lift it into a higher life. 
There is an old Gnostic heresy, that all evil lies 
in matter ; that somehow man is a sinner, be- 
cause he has a body made out of the dust of 
the earth, and that he is to rise into a holy life 
by virtue of this separation that is to take 
place between body and soul. And so he 
whose creed is that all evil lies in matter, will 
fain make of the body a scape-goat for carrying 
off the sins of the soul. 

When man first transgressed, the sign of sin 
upon his body brought upon him a degradation 
from the torture of which he could not escape. 
The light here was strong — it was sin in the 
flesh — it was truth in its lowest manifestations; 
and many have been the hiding-places which 
mankind have sought from conscience, that 
voice of God in the soul. They have said, 



INSTINCTS. 127 

All evil lies in matter." They have said, 
Consecration means annihilation." They 
have said, " Torture the body, and it will bear 
away the sins of the soul." They have said, 
" Eschew marriage, shun the family, seek the 
cloister." As the law of God was revealed, 
these manifestations of sin in the body kept 
ever before the awakened conscience, turning 
the soul against the body, and leading the man 
to say, "This body is not me, it is mine en- 
emy," and thus men have ever sought to hide 
their nakedness with fig leaves. 

God asks us to give Him our bodies, and 
does not this mean our all ? for does not the 
surrender of the lower nature involve that of 
the higher ? 

NAZARITISM. 

A like entire surrender is expressed in the 
vow of Nazaritism, where abstinence from some 
things that address the appetite implied a con- 



128 HANNAH'S VOW, 

secration of appetite, and where the hair left 
to grow was expressive of the same. The hair 
crowns the brain, and thrives where each sense 
is planted, and so the consecration of brain 
and sense, of intellect and appetite, w^as ex- 
pressed by keeping undipped the hair, which is 
the nerveless terminus of the body. 

CIRCUMCISION. 

The rite of circumcision expressed a like sur- 
render ; it told of the crucifixion of the lusts, 
and not a killing out of the life. The rite, in 
its full spiritual rendering, meant an entire sur- 
render. It involved all that the Apostle en- 
joined under the fuller light of the gospel, 
where his beseechings are, " By the mercies of 
God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your rea- 
sonable service." 

The rite of circumcision involved this fullness 
of consecration. The symbolical robing of 



INSTINCTS. 129 

truth, in that earlier and darker period, was 
not that the truth might be limited in power 
but that it might be protected and saved. In 
the light of a fuller revelation, circumcision is 
seen as a rite that speaks of the sanctification 
of the life, as Christ gives it — a sanctification 
of the body — a sanctification from the womb. 

HUMBLE THINGS IN NATURE TEACH PURITY. 

As the Bible brings us light from'the distant 
past in symbols, so Nature, too, from her depths, 
is mighty in the moral of her symbols, shedding 
glory upon the body. The tree grows, shoots 
forth its branches, and unfolds its leaves, that 
it may bear fruit ; and in performing this, its 
appointed function, all its instincts are aroused, 
all its life forces concentrated ; its foliage, 
flowers, fragrance, and stateliness and under- 
ground growth and resisting power are all foi 
this end. If an injury comes, or its growth is 
hindered by unfriendly elements, it often blooms 
9 



130 HANNAH'S VOW, 

before its time. If it could grow and perfect, 
it would wait, but its individual life is threat- 
ened, and it must hasten to accomplish that 
which is more than the saving of its life. It 
must reproduce its kind. Thus it lives, that 
others may live after it ; and while in the mul- 
titude of its seeds it is food to the thousand 
mouths that feed upon its fruit, nourishing the 
great sea of life that beats around it ; so, also, 
by these many seeds it secures the continuance 
of its species. How the tree rises in excellence, 
as seed is borne ! It is now in its freshest life, 
the leaves put on their brightest green, the 
flowers burst from their buds, hallowing, with 
their brightness and fragrance, the birth. 
From an insignificant bush comes the rose, 
joyous in its fragrance, royal in its beauty. 
From a plant yet more humble, looks out the 
pure, the perfect lily. 

God's flowers look up from the depths of 
Nature, all-glorious in the reflected hght of 



INSTINCTS. 131 

heaven ; and the human form grows more 
glorious in their light. Flowers tell what the 
body was ere sin defiled it, ere darkness cov- 
ered it j and flowers tell what the body will 
be when light returns, when the eye becomes 
single, and the whole body is full of light. 

PROVIDENTIAL CARE. 

Consider the consecration of Hannah in the 
light of God's providential care. It is the care 
of the Heavenly Father, whose far-reaching 
love extends to the least temporal want. He 
numbers the very hairs of our heads. He 
hears the young ravens when they cry. He 
adorns the lilies. 

They toil not, neither do they spin,'^ 
Yet glory king's wealth ne'er could win, 
He taught was in their heaven-made dress, 
His hand wrought all their loveliness. 
The lily shines in brighter sun 
Than all the pomp of Solomon. 



132 HANNAH'S VOW, 

*^ They toil not ^' — here a love is found 

To make these child-like words profound. 

Love looks, and, lo, the lily wings, 

Upwafted midst sweet sentient things. 
" They toil not neither do they spin ; " 

Sweet Nature's hymns in heaven begin ; 

And born above, to earth they glide, 

Earth gladly echoing back the tide. 

Her tuneful depths resounding ring 

Refrains the same as angels sing. 

So, e'en to lilies voice is given, 

To lisp soft choral songs of heaveiu 

Man's sympathy is aspiring,- ' narrow, and 
self-seeking. God's sympathy is condescend- 
ing, boundless, and self-sacrificing. All things 
reveal his fatherly care. Nothing is made to 
hide his personal superintendence. Worlds 
are revealed that we may behold his power, 
not that we should forget his personality. 
Laws are revealed that we may see the order in 
which He works, and not that we should for- 
get his fatherly care. 



INSTINCTS. 133 

When man takes thought, and toils that he 
may clothe his body, he but cooperates with 
God, who blesses the labor of his hands. Of 
the ten thousand wants of which man cannot 
think, his Father goes on thinking for him, as 
He does for the lily that neither toils nor spins. 
And this God has ever done for man. In his 
ante-natal existence, it was the same, in his in- 
fancy it was the same, in sickness and in 
health, in darkness and light, asleep and 
awake, the Father in heaven was thinking of 
him, caring for him. 

Christ's sanctifying grace. 

Hannah's consecration is seen in the light 
of Christ's sanctifying grace. The Son of Man 
came to restore all and more than all that was 
lost in Adam. As in Adam all die, so in 
Christ shall all be made alive " — a declaration 
which makes manifest the fullness of the salva- 
tion when appropriated by faith. In its work 



134 HANNAH'S VOW. 

upon the soul the restoration of the second 
Adam (as Christ is sometimes called), is to be 
as radical as was the ruin of the first. The 
Apostle says, ^'We are the bodies of Christ, 
and members in particular ; we are members 
of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones, and 
we are born again, and Christ is our life/' 

Is there power in language to express a 
nearer relation, a more radical change, or a 
fuller life ? 

And why have we so full an account in the 
Bible of sin as an hereditary taint, if not to 
show us what the work of Christ may and will 
be ? Why is sin revealed as a leprosy, the 
virus of which goes from parent to child, if 
not to make Christ known as One v/ho could 
not only heal the disease, but purify the foun- 
tain ? 

The Psalmist says (Psalm li. 5), " Behold I 
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 
mother conceive me." David here makes no 



INSTINCTS. 135 

reference to the maj-riage of his parents ; that 
was honorable. He refers to what he received 
through his parents, the fallen nature of man. 

But did Samuel receive the nature of xA.dam 
from his mother, in the sense that David did ? 
The same 7iatiire, we reply, but with Samuel the 
sanctifying work began earlier. It began wnth 
his very being. It was of him, as of Jeremiah 
the prophet, Before I formed thee in the 
belly, I knew thee ; and before thou camest 
forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee.'' 

Such v/as Samuel \ and he was thus sancti- 
fied from the womb, because the mother had 
virtually said, '* Lord, I give my body in mar- 
riage, for offspring for thee." 



IX. 



MARRIAGE. 

IGHT views of marriage are all-impor- 
tant. Hannah's views rose with her 
growing conceptions of her Redeemer, 
her King, her Anointed. With her new views 
of Him, came noble views of her body as in 
the Divine image, as from Him, and belonging 
to Him, and new thoughts of the meaning of 
wife and mother. 

Many who never expect to enter the mar- 
riage state, still have noble views of it — views 
inseparable from right views of Christ. Such, 
with bodies not cursed, but consecrated — not 
given up to death and annihilation, but to 




MARRIAGE. 1 37 

Christ, and to life, ever live to bless those 
around them. All they say and do, helps to 
lift up and to purify — for their souls are full of 
the seeds of thought. They beget spiritual 
children. Their sphere may be very humble, 
their work unregarded ; but if not more 
marked than the giving a cup of cold water, 
they are sowing seed in the garden of God that 
will bear fruit on and on, forever. It is the op- 
posite with those who believe that consecration 
means annihilation. Such have from neces- 
sity low and hateful views of marriage and of 
child-bearing ; and whatever their education 
and profession may be, their souls are barren. 
They may take delight in abstract dogmas, may 
show talent in organizing, may love to rule, 
but however much knowledge they may pos- 
sess, and however refined and fashionable and 
brilliant such may seem, their souls are unfruit- 
ful — their lives, in their results, bring forth 
nothing but leaves. 



138 



HANNAH'S VOW. 



TEACHINGS OF ROMANISM ON MARRIAGE. 

Opinions have largely prevailed in the Church 
that the highest attainment in Divine life was 
to be reached, not in marriage, but in the re- 
nunciation of it. This spirit of monkery, so 
rife in the Middle Ages, built monasteries all 
over Europe. The hold which these opinions 
have upon the Romish Church, is seen in the 
great excitement which followed the marriage 
of Martin Luther — and which so recently fol- 
lowed that of Father Hyacinthe. The secret of 
this great hostility to marriage is in the polit- 
ical and centralizing power which celibacy 
gives the Church. The doctrine that a desire 
for marriage is a sign of moral feebleness, or 
that it is a rite given to man in condescension 
to human frailty, is a doctrine which hides mar- 
riage as a type of Christ and the Church. By 
these views, the Romish Church is exalted as 
the temporal domain of the pope, but brought 



MARRIAGE. 1 39 

down as the spiritual realm of Christ. Many 
men and women of high moral natures, misled 
by this error, have turned away from the family 
to the cloister, who might have lived noble and 
happy lives in the marriage state, and trans- 
mitted their better blood to children. 

PAUL, THE APOSTLE, ON MARRIAGE. 

Do the teachings of Paul favor this error? 
The great Apostle gives no ground for the doc- 
trine. He presented his body to the Lord — 
choosing not to marry, — but certainly not re- 
nouncing marriage in the spirit of the priest- 
hood of the Romish Church. 

A great and sore judgment was now about to 
come upon the Jews, and Paul would prepare 
his countrymen for those troublous days — 
days in which God would curse their blessings. 
When God made man in his own image. He 
blessed his work in these words : Increase 
and multiply and replenish the earth \ " that 



140 HANNAH'S VOW, 

blessing given so early, and for all, was now to 
be reversed in the coming reign of terror that 
was to make Jerusalem a heap of ruins : ^* Daugh- 
ters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep 
for yourselves, and for your children. For be- 
hold, the days are coming, in the which they shall 
say. Blessed are the barren, and the wombs 
that never bare, and the paps which never 
gave suck." These woes of which Jesus spake 
under the shadow of the cross, were near their 
fulfillment when Paul finished his work. 

The Apostle taught that while these judg- 
ments were passing, marriage might not be de- 
sirable ; and so it was because of this state of 
the times that he exalted celibacy, not because 
of its advantages in purity of state over mar- 
riage. 

This Apostle had been taught of the Lord 
the meaning of marriage, and he seeks to teach 
others the same ; so he brings the husband and 
wife into the presence of the crucified One, and 



MARRIAGE, I4I 

seeks to raise them through their affection for 
each other into a higher love for Jesus, well 
knowing that in that love for Jesus their love 
for each other would be ennobled. 

Not all the books that men have written, re- 
veal so much of the true heaven of marriage, as 
do the closing verses of the fifth chapter of 
Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

WHAT CHRIST TAUGHT OF MARRIAGE. 

And what is the precious lesson given us in 
the gospels ? 

Our Saviour's first miracle was wrought at a 
wedding. He was there with his mother and 
his disciples — He a guest, and friend of the 
bridegroom and bride. He was there to rejoice 
with them. Jesus was the joy of heaven, and 
He came from heaven that He might be the joy 
of the whole earth. He entered upon his mis- 
sion '* anointed with the oil of joy and glad- 
ness above his fellows." His first sermon be- 



142 HANNAH'S VOW. 

gan with blessings upon the children of his 
kingdom. His first miracle was wrought to 
raise the festive joys of a wedding. Do these 
thoughts of Jesus seem irreverent Does it 
seem more reverent to think of Him as a mere 
spectator among earthly scenes ? As coming as 
it were from a king's court, to study with a crit- 
ical eye, without entering with soul sympathy, 
into the pleasures and pursuits of men 1 Our 
blessed Saviour came here, not as prince, 
priest, or scribe. He would not recommend 
Himself by rank. Rank and riches would have 
only dimmed the lustre of his greatness. He 
came to save the rich, all who would receive 
One who was equally the Saviour of the poor. 
He came to save the poor, all who would re- 
ceive One who was equally the Saviour of the 
rich. He came to save the Jews, all of his 
countrymen who would receive One who was 
equally the Saviour of the Gentiles. 

Jesus, the Saviour of men, was great in his 



MARRIAGE. 1 43 

manhood, social and affectionate, sympathizing 
in every healthy human joy. 

I know that the clouds of sin and wrath were 
ever thickening around Him j but the courage 
of his heart was perfect. His love was invin- 
cible. And the serenity of soul, the peace 
which He left to his followers, was ever mani- 
fest in Him. And his joy, at times, broke 
forth. If He wept, in sympathy with sorrow, 
He, too, rejoiced in spirit. 

Imagine that there is, in a large and happy 
family, one son, whose joyful nature is so 
marked, that he is felt by all to be the life of 
the house. This son and brother is moved to 
go alone on an errand of mercy to some dis- 
tant country, where pestilence rages and vice 
reigns. I ask, will the very happy nature of 
this son make it easier for the family to part 
with him ? or make him less useful to the sick 
and sinning to whom he goes 1 or less a bless- 



144 HANNAH'S VOW. 

ing to any who are capable of being benefited ? 
And if he falls a victim to the wrath of those 
whom he would save, will it make their guilt 
less, because of his full life and joyful nature ? 

Jesus, the joy of heaven, came down to raise 
earth to heaven. He was present, in sympathy, 
at the sick bed, that the sick might rise. He 
was present, in sympathy at the bier of the 
dead, that the dead might rise. He was pres- 
ent, in sympathy, at the table of publicans and 
sinners, that sinners might rise ; and he was 
present, in sympathy, at a w^edding, that the 
rite of marriage might rise a higher thing : that 
the life of marriage might rise a holier thing. 
And as he raised the water of the waterpots 
into the purest wine, so would he change the 
hearts of bridegroom and bride, and be the joy 
and wine of their souls. 

Christ's love of children. 

The blessed Jesus put honor upon marriage, 
and so also did He put honor upon childhood. 



MARRIAGE. 1 45 

He beckoned little children to Him, He lifted 
them in his arms, He blessed them ; and this 
blessing means, not only a saving of the child, 
but of the childhood. 

The sound tree that has been maturing 
through a century, will show, in the severed 
trunk, widening rings that tell of the growth of 
each year. The tiny shoot of the first year's ' 
growth is there, and the next year's growth, 
and the next — all saved, and all helping to 
make the tree strong and perfect. The same 
of man's development. The joyous, loving, 
truthful, and teachable nature of the child, is 
manifest in the harmoniously developed man. 

The Redeemer was not only a man among 
men, but one who had grown up out of infancy, 
out of childhood, holding and husbanding, in 
all its freshness and fragrance, the developed 
beauty of each stage, from the helpless infant, 
to the holy man. 

And so He is in sympathy w^ith each step of 
10 



146 HANNAH'S VOW. 

human life from birth to maturity. He came 
among men, not only to meet every condition 
of grade, but of growth. He came not only to 
meet all ranks, the rich and the poor, the sor- 
rowing and the rejoicing, but also every stage 
of the individual's growth. He had a look for 
the little child, that told of the tenderest sym- 
pathy, that He could feel for all its wants, that 
there was room in his great heart for its whole 
nature. 

The Saviour taught his disciples that the way-*^ 
into his kingdom was not under proud vaults, 
such as Caesars built for their triumphs, but 
beneath lowly arches where they must stoop to 
enter : and did not his eye beam with love 
upon them, and upon the little child He had 
placed in their midst, when He said to his 
disciples, in words severe and at the same 
time so tender, " Verily, I say unto you. Ex- 
cept ye be converted, and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom 



MARRIAGE, 1 4/ 

of heaven. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble 
himself as this little child, the same is greatest 
in the kingdom of heaven." How hard for the 
disciples to sympathize with his child-loving 
spirit ! 

Is it not evident that all the darkness on 
this subject of the body's consecration is in the 
evil heart, and none of this darkness in the 
revealed will of God ? 

He asks for the body, that He may sanctify 
it, and make it a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
That this consecration is a duty, He teaches 
in the holy rite of circumcision, which was a 
sign and seal of his willingness to sanctify the 
whole nature. That this is a "reasonable 
service," He teaches in the Apostle's words of 
entreaty that the body be presented a liv- 
ing sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto Him." 
With this consecration come new views of the 
Saviour's nearness and preciousness, and new 
views of prayer. And can we believe that 



148 HANNAH'S VOW. 

prayer is not heard when bodily wants are the 
burden of the petition ? 

With this consecration come, too, heavenly 
views of marriage ; the opposite of those that 
turn light into darkness, and make marriage a 
source of weakness and decay. 

In this consecration, marriage becomes a 
source of strength and longevity, bringing the 
soul's faculties into their fullest development, 
their finest harmony. 

Children, the fruit of marriage thus entered 
upon, come into life better formed and better 
furnished in body and mind than their parents, 
more easily alive to the influence of Divine 
truth than their parents were. 



X. 



MODERN DAYS. 

HERE is a great increase of light in 
our day — science unlocks new se- 
crets — thought travels in new chan- 
nels. But this new light has no more power 
than the old to drive out sin. Modern civiliza- 
tion is here as powerless as was the ancient. 
The splendid city of Paris, the modern Athens, 
carries in her culture no more power to expel 
corruption than did the ancient. Her gods are 
the same. She makes a religion of Art, as did 
Athens of old, and her citizens admire and 
worship. But when war comes, her commun- 
ists in their frenzy destroy these monuments 




I50 HANNAH'S VOW. 

and museums of art, these gods whom they 
were told to worship. Crowds of the peasantry 
of France go from the rural districts and be- 
come laborers and artisans in Paris \ and the 
few of this class who ever marry have few and 
feeble children, and fewer and feebler grand- 
children. They come to the city like moths to 
the candle, drawn by its glitter to be consumed 
by its pleasures: and all modern cities have 
the same elements of evil — elements that 
grow strong as w^ealth and population increase. 
America and Europe are alike in this — for 
civilization, to-day, carries in itself no more of 
a regenerating power than it did three thou- 
sand years ago. 

The vices of ancient Babylon and Nineveh 
and Rome and Athens hide and burrow where 
our broader culture exists, and everywhere 
fasten their fangs at the vitals of our higher 
civilization. 

But this evil, that brings in its wake a dwin- 



MODERN DA YS, I 5 1 

dling posterity, is not peculiar to the city. It 
may be more rife there, but it is seeking with 
the blast of its sirocco breath to dry up the 
fountains of life in homes all over the land, — 
and here money and luxury and leisure only 
increase its power. 

It was prophesied of these times, " Many 
shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be 
increased." This prophecy, which dates a new 
era in the world's civilization, suggests new 
dangers with this increase of light and liberty. 
It tells of new excitements which may be turned 
into evil as well as good. 

A feverish desire for company and for travel 
takes away the enjoyment of the more rational 
and restful home hfe : the husband in it loses 
his love for children ; the wife finds in her in- 
creased desire for journeying and visiting, that 
bearing and nursing children is too great a bur- 
den. And together they come into a life, the 
language of which is, — 



152 HANNAH'S VOW, 

*' We live for self, for self alone, 
Care not what comes when we are gone ; 
We '11 burn the bridge of Time behind, 
That none may cross, our hands to bind. 
Beneath our house, Death's match and mine, 
When lit, farewell — farewell the line." 

It would be an easy thing to array a host of 
facts to illustrate the strength of this curse of 
modern society. Physicians give us appalling 
pictures of prevailing ideas of marriage and off- 
spring. We rejoice in the warnings which they 
utter; but appeals to fear alone can do but 
little. They cannot dry up surface sins, much 
less the fountain heads of corruption — the 
great^ dark, silent under-currents of evil, that 
flow through the ocean of human life. 

MILLENNIUM. 

Prophecies of coming millennial days are to 
be found in the book of God's works, as well as 
in the book of his Word. For wherever life is 
(and air, earth, and water are teeming with it). 



MODERN DAYS. 153 

there is going on a struggle for existence which 
means advancement towards an improved life. 
This struggle goes on with bird, beast, fish, 
and insect. Everywhere the stronger is gain- 
ing upon the weaker. 

By a law of natural selection the weak ones 
of a race are thus supplanted. Weak races, at 
long intervals, make way for stronger races ; 
weak species^ at yet longer intervals, make way 
for stronger species ; and this constant troub- 
ling of the water, this endless dashing of waves 
on the deep sea of life that rounds the world, 
means cleansing. It tells that, by and by, this 
sea will be purified. 

To man powder is given to raise the races 
of animals : this is implied in his promised 
dominion over them. It is found that all kinds 
of domestic animals rapidly improve in the 
hands of a skillful breeder j and the experience 
of such tells him that if he has reached a point 
where he makes no progress, it is because of 



154 HANNAH'S VOW, 

his limited knowledge of the occult laws of 
breeding; and not because he has perfected 
the race of sheep or cattle or horses that are in 
his hands. 

None, for example, understand better than 
those who have given careful study to the law 
of variability as applicable to sheep-breeding, 
the power which man has to change their 
form, their disposition, the size of their bones, 
the quantity and quality of their fleece, and of 
their flesh. And so of all domestic animals. 
It is this dominion of man over animals, raising 
them in the scale of animal existence, that 
suggests the nature of his power over his own 
animal life. 

God has come down to lift up his whole 
nature, and to lift up the race of animals 
with him, as far as they are useful to him ; 
and man's power here to raise the races below 
him, proclaims the power given him to perfect 
his own body. 



MODERN DA YS. 



155 



INCREASE IN KNOWLEDGE. 

The millennium will be a time of great in- 
crease in knowledge. Such an increase is im- 
plied in the promised dominion of man over all 
forms of life below him, and over the material 
earth. For this increase of power implies an 
increase of knowledge — of knowledge of the 
laws of the elements of nature, as well as of 
the laws of animal life. It is knowledge that 
unlocks the secrets of nature, and makes earth 
more man's servant, and the elements more 
subservient, and animals more useful. 

The Lord has in past ages sought to bring 
nations into this high inheritance of knowledge, 
and, through knowledge, of dominion. But 
whenever nations have grasped this sacred gift, 
they have made it subservient to a spirit of 
vain-glory. 

In the millennium it will be otherwise, for 
then knowledge will always be seen as from 



156 HANNAH'S VOW, 

Him j always be used in honoring Him. 
Knowledge, because then sanctified, will ever 
work for the growth of the higher spiritual 
nature on the one hand, and the lower animal 
nature on the other. 

Thus in that glorious day when man is 
brought into full harmony with himself, the 
brain will be the friend to bless, not the foe to 
destroy the spiritual nature ; and the friend to 
bless, not the foe to destroy the body life. 

In the millennium, because of a greater intel- 
lectual development, wisdom and knowledge 
will be the stability of the times ; and because 
of a greater heart development, the ransomed 
of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with 
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads ; 
and because of a greater fullness of physical 
life, there shall be no more thence an infant of 
days, nor an old man that hath not filled his 
days : for the child shall die an hundred years 
old. They shall not build and* another in- 



MODERN DA YS. 1 5 / 

habit : they shall not plant and another eat : 
for as the days of a tree are the days of my 
people. 

" Lo, now, God's gifts pervade the whole, — 
The body, spirit, and the soul. 
And these rich gifts, sent down to bless. 
Are wholeness, health, and holiness." 

The coming millennial light is to go deep 
down into the heart of the individual, expand- 
ing and ennobling the whole man. 

The body in those days will become a tem- 
ple, with its glory restored, its broken columns, 
and walls, and mouldings, and proportions, 
brought back ; its altar repaired, and the fra- 
grance of its burning incense filling the house. 

The glory of the coming millennium is to be 
without, widening over all the earth, subduing 
the nations, and oh, glorious thought ! it is to 
be within also. 

Within the bright millennial days. 
The altar, incense, and the rays ; 



158 HANNAH'S VOW. 

Within, love reigning, stilling strife, 
Within, love reigning — love is life." 

Does not the story of Hannah and Samuel 
suggest this view of the millennium glory? this 
rising and rounding of man's whole nature ? 
Had not this woman a foretaste of the joy and 
peace of that day ? Had she not, in that dark 
period, poured out upon her the spirit of 
prophecy ? Is not her life, rightly read, itself 
a prophecy of millennial glory ? 

" First, to her heart, comes truth in seed, 
From seed, fair leaves and fruit are freed ; 
As fuller rays from sun divine. 
Through Time's long vista, light the line. 
Now lo, to Hannah's faith is given, 
To see in seed, fair tree of heaven. 
Soft-silvered, as the dews and rays, 
Show dawning of millennial days." 

CONCLUSION. 

T appeal to the young maidens whose minds 
have been arrested by our theme. Give your 



MODERN DA YS, 159 

bodies to Jesus, a living sacrifice, and trust 
your future to Him. 

If there come proposals of marriage, the Lord 
will make known his will. 

If that state is entered in this spirit of con- 
secration, your husbands will be seen as the 
Lord's gifts. If children are born, they too, 
will be as Heaven's gifts. And as you trust 
your own interests, so can you trust your chil- 
dren's, for time and eternity, to the Lord. And 
when many of your number in marriage, and 
in preparation for marriage, have taken these 
vows of Nazaritism, then the Church will have 
many sons and daughters, sanctified from the 
womb, — their lives not severed lives — one 
half soiled and weakened and wasted, and the 
other half washed and purified, — but united 
lives, and the same from the cradle to the sep- 
ulchre ; all one, not in a depressing sameness 
and monotony, but in brightness and variety 
and beauty ; all one, with the first full strength 



l60 HANNAH'S VOW, 

of the life husbanded ; all one, and each soul 
in harmony with itself and Nature and Provi- 
dence j all one, and all God's. Then the great 
want will be supplied. The Church in that day 
wall have men ; men who in body and mind 
are fitted to endure hardness ; men who fear 
neither poverty nor obscurity ; men who are 
strong in their regard for principle \ strong in 
their sympathy for the poor ; strong in their 
charity for all ; strong in their spirit of pra3^er. 
The Church will then have men who wear the 
whole armor of God ; and who, like Israel's 
last judge, if not worshipped while they live, 
wdll be wanted when - they are gone. Many 
sons will thus grow up Samuels, as you^ daugh- 
ters, become Hannahs. 



